The Most Popular Books Ever Written

As an author, it's essential to also be a reader. Authors are influenced and inspired by other greats who have taken pen to page to pour out prose. Every writer should have a reading habit bordering on addiction, because it's important to continuously build upon your craft. Reading is really research for new writing styles, new punctuation usage, tone and wordsmithery (not a word technically, but I like it). 

So if you want to write a bestseller someday, doesn't it follow that you should study bestsellers of the past? Take a look at the most popular books ever written (at least, to date) and see how your work compares to the best of the bestsellers. 

Still the One

The trouble is, it's hard to determine just which books are actually the best. How do you determine what makes a book great? Is it good reviews? Sales? The number of people who have read it? As it turns out, the best book in one of those categories usually ranks pretty high in the others, too.

•  Fiction Novels

Among fiction novels, there's no general consensus as to which is the absolute best, but there are a lot of opinions. The Guardian ranked Don Quixote (pronounced Key-Hoe-Tee) as the greatest novel of all time. Also on their top 100 list: Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Emma, Little Women and Huckleberry Finn.

According to multiple sources, Don Quixote is the best-selling fiction book ever written. More than 500 million copies of the book have been printed and sold worldwide, though exact figures are hard to obtain because the story was printed originally in 1612. The title character is famously a bit of an accidental hero, known to tilt at windmills and make many mistakes in his bizarre quest.

Other sources say that Dickens actually holds the top slot. His novel A Tale of Two Cities, first printed in 1859, has sold more than 200 million copies. Closely on its heels is Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), a French novel published in 1943. The Lord of the Rings is definitely in the hunt, however, having sold 150 million copies since its 1954 release.

Of course, those are all just stand-alone books.

• Series Books

Some authors can't confine their creativity to just one book; their stories are too big for that. Rather than comparing each individual book in a series, many rank the success of the series overall...but then, it's unfair to compare a whole bunch of books to just one. So when it comes to ranking the best of the bestsellers, series books get their own category. 

Perhaps predictably, Harry Potter takes this title. The series (7 books in total) has sold more than 450 million copies worldwide. British author J.K. Rowling is far ahead of her closest competition, author R.L. Stine. Stine's Goosebumps series has sold around 300 million copies around the world.

• Cookbooks

It doesn't have to be fiction to be a bestselling book. Many authors have found success with cookbooks, because every human being has to eat food to survive. Anyone who can teach others how to make that food tasty is valuable, and it shows in sales figures.

Joy of Cooking, by Irma Rombauer, is arguably the most famous cookbook ever written. It inspired Julia Child, among others, to create her own cookbook and taught millions of women around the world how to perform basic to complicated recipes. Since 1931, it's sold a whopping 18 million copies worldwide.

Two other cookbooks have sold a few more copies. Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book is cited as being the most popular cookbook of all time, with 40 million copies sold. First printed in 1930, the book has been updated many times throughout the years to stay relevant (a recipe for success). But it's actually Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, first printed in 1950, that's the most popular. More than 65 million copies of this one have been sold.

• Non-Fiction

We all love novels, and cookbooks are definitely handy little kitchen tools. But the books that have sold more copies than any other are all labeled as non-fiction.

Religious books are unquestionably the most popular books ever written. Quotations from Chairman Mao, the Qur'an and the Bible, in that order, are the most-printed, most-distributed books around the world. Multiple hundreds of millions of copies of these books have been printed and re-printed over many centuries, and it's impossible to estimate just how many of these books have been published through the years.

Most sources agree that the Bible is the biggest bestseller. Estimates put the total number of books printed at right around 5 billion. The classification for religious books is clearly debatable, but they're labeled as non-fiction (somewhat unfairly to biography writers, as far as I'm concerned). So whether they're fiction or not, this is the category in which they're always shoved -- and in any case, all three of these books have out-sold true fiction novels.

The most popular books ever written all have a lesson to teach, and it's this: people love a great story. If it's truly fantastic and entertaining and funny and poignant and meaningful, a story can stay popular for many hundreds of years and touch many millions (or billions) of people. Think about all your favorite books, what you love about them and why you love them. Think about the way those books make you feel, what they make you think, why they resonate with you. Take those elements, and learn how to bring them to your own books. Maybe in a few years, your book will end up somewhere on the list of the most popular books ever written.

Writing 101: Dating Your Book

Adding dates and date-specific events to your book will make it feel more like reality, but it will also put a pretty clear expiration date on its relevancy. At some point, every contemporary book ever written stops being relevant and starts being history. There are all sorts of little things you might be adding that are dating your book. What should you do about it? 

Please Sell By...

Sometimes, there's just no other way to get certain plot points across, and an exact date is necessary. If there's some question of a character's age or birth place, or if someone goes to look at a grave, exact dates are going to come up. Sometimes, an exact date suits the circumstance. A character appearing in court before a judge, for example, may hear a long litany of charges and a docket number and specific dates. If the police are asking questions about a crime, they're going to use exact dates.

For some writers, it's just unavoidable. But even if you're terribly clever and you find a way to write around it, you're still dating your book. It doesn't take a specific date to clearly place your book in a specific time frame, and you may not even know it's happening. 

Reference music, television or technology, and you're very clearly pinpointing a specific range of years, months or even weeks. Reference any sort of current event (like names of actual Presidents or earthquakes), and you're likewise pinning yourself down to a specific date or date range. Even clothing trends can date your book, or popular expressions. I recently read a book that extensively detailed activities on Facebook. Fifty years from now, that reference may be obscure and obsolete. So no matter how careful you are to avoid dates, you're dating your book anyway.

Even if you avoid pop culture and technology, it's happening. If you're writing with a contemporary, current voice, your book is dated. Once upon a time, Pride and Prejudice was a contemporary book. The author, Jane Austen, wrote about what life was like in the times she was actually living. And when it first came out, that book resonated with all who read it. Today, the language feels stodgy and archaic, and the descriptions of daily life aren't much like the way we live today. Speech and words are ever-changing. Words we use now are going to be outdated 100 years from now.

So now you know the cold, hard truth: your book is going to be dated, no matter what you do. One day, your contemporary setting will become historical. Here's the good news: it doesn't really matter.

Expired

Some authors are absolutely terrified of using dates, pop culture references and other material that might date their work...and it's silly. A word could be invented next year that catches on and becomes the word, and the book you wrote 6 months before will start looking old-fashioned all of a sudden. There's just no help for it: time marches on, and new books become old books. Don't be afraid of it, because it's no big deal.

You can prove it by Pride and Prejudice, and hundreds of other books. Jane Austen's classic was first published in 1813. It's sold more than 20 million copies, and you'll have no trouble buying it anywhere today. The book is constantly being referenced, adapted, re-written and discussed, for all its dated language and prim ideas and highfalutin morality. People still love that book, because it's good. It was good 200 years ago and it's still good today, even if it does describe history that's long gone. 

Your book is going to be dated the moment you publish it -- the date's right there next to it, or underneath it, and it ought to be on your copyright page, too. So don't worry about that. Focus on making the content exceptional, and it won't matter that the book is dated. It may still stay in style for hundreds of years to come. 

Writing 101: Double-Spacing...and Why It's Wrong

Double-spacing after a period.  Like this.  Is wrong.  But so many people have so many different opinions about double-spacing and single-spacing after punctuation, it's difficult to point to just one reason why it's wrong. I'm going to try anyway.

 Single and Fabulous?

The number of spaces that should be placed after a period is actually a hot point of contention among writers, editors and typographers. This is the kind of stuff that gets word nerds all kinds of hot and bothered, and I guess I'm no exception. I passionately believe that only one space should be used following any sentence, and the general school of typography agrees with me. 

Typesetters are the people who actually put the words on the page. They're responsible for making everything fit together and using all the space they've got in an economical fashion. Since the early 20th century, it's been an industry standard in Europe and the Americas to use a single space, not a double, between the period and the new sentence.

Standards were much looser before the 19th century, and in the early days of printing typesetters often used enlarged spaces following their periods. But a 19th-century invention would screw all the spacing up and confuse writers even 200 years later.

 Doubles, Anyone?

Ironically, it was the manual typewriter that changed spacing forevermore. The standard space on the manual typewriter was considered by many to be too small to properly separate sentences. Many writers began hitting the spacebar twice, not just once, after every period in order to provide the necessary separation. It became the norm to do this, and double-spaced typing was even taught in typing classes. No one uses manual typewriters anymore, but the error is still being repeated all the time. 

If it's an error. The debate continues to rage on to this day, with many hotly defending the usefulness of the double space. I hate it, and I advise against using it, and I'm going to tell you why. 

The Way It Is 

Typesetters and printers established the single-space standard for a pretty important reason: money. When words take up less space, fewer pages may be used to print out a whole book. Fewer pages equals less cost to make the books, and that means they can be priced more competitively.

It's something no indie author can ignore. CreateSpace is easy and affordable, but it ain't free. Self-published authors can't afford to be less cost-conscious than those huge publishing houses.

It's also important for indies to conform to all industry standards in matters of grammar, punctuation and spacing -- both to fit in with all the other books and to prove that they can. Indies have a bad reputation as being amateurs and hacks, so don't visually separate your books from the ones the big box publishers are churning out by the million.

And because it is a standard, you could get called on it if you do it incorrectly and use a double space. If you do any guest posts or freelance writing assignments, you could easily draw the ire of a blog owner or editor who has very strong opinions. Conform to the standard; they'll definitely let you know if they want you make changes. If they do, just use your search-and-replace function to fix your spacing.

Judgment: Exclusive First Look

Can't wait until Judgment (Deck of Lies, #4) comes out in November? You don't have to! Death, the third book in the Deck of Lies series, now has an exclusive preview of Judgment. 

Blog readers can get Death free in any electronic format at Smashwords all week long. Use the coupon code PZ96Z to get 100% off, and get a sneak peek of what's coming up in the fourth (and final) installment of the Deck of Lies series.

Writing 101: Bad Writing Habits

You may not even know that you've got bad writing habits. I didn't know that I had one until after I got rejected hundreds of times, and finally took it upon myself to figure out why. You've got to figure out how to spot, and stop, your own bad writing habits. Everybody's got them. 

Got a Bad Habit

I've briefly mentioned the rejection letter that marked a severe turning point in my writing life, and my discovery of my own bad writing habit can be traced right back to this source. It wasn't until I had an actual mystery to solve that I managed to find out one of the things I do wrong when I sit down to write. It helps that I actually write mysteries, but any writer can figure out how to spot their own bad habits. 

The one criticism the letter had for me was ambiguous at best: too repetitive. The word stuck out to me, and bothered me, and made me fret. So I sat down to re-read the book that got rejected, which is a massive epic of more than 240,000 words (it remains unpublished and I don't want to talk about it). That's nearly a quarter of a million words, and that's a lot. But I wanted to figure out the why of the rejection, so I was fueled by vanity. 

It's a strong motivator. I re-read that book and then re-read it again, growing increasingly peeved. I searched for passages that I repeated, descriptions that I was giving over and over, use of too many "said"s at the end of my dialogue (you know, "he said," "she said," "I said," "they said"). 

I couldn't find anything wrong. My descriptions were well-balanced; I didn't give them too often. I didn't repeat too many of the same words (you know I'm good with a Thesaurus). I didn't know what was wrong. 

And I reached a breaking point. Practically howling with frustration, I began to go through the book a third time to find out why I was too repetitive. My brain was screaming all sorts of colorful words about picky agents and their stupid standards, lies in letters and ambiguous hints that mean nothing at all. I started flying through the book, barely pausing as my eyes briefly skimmed each page in search of an error...any error. 

That's when I saw it. As I scanned, a single phrase began to stick out to me. I kept seeing it again and again...and again. Only with all those 240,000 words flying past my eyes could I make out the pattern that was cleverly buried inside the prose. And I realized the letter was right after all, because these two words were repeated over and over.

It seems. When I started looking, this phrase was everywhere in my manuscript.  

But he had forgotten all about me, it seems.

"It seems the weather turned while we were away." 

It seems silly now, but looking back I think I miss the grass the most. 

I used the find function to see just how many times this phrase appeared in that single book, to see how bad my habit really was. 

More than three hundred times. And the person who rejected me was right: it was too darned repetitive. I fixed the problem and I've never touched the book again, and I broke that bad habit. The moment I became aware of it, I started writing just a little bit better. It seems appears in my book Justice exactly twice, and you'll find it in my book Death just once. I don't make that mistake anymore...so hopefully soon I'll start finding all the other bad writing habits I don't yet know that I've got. 

Maybe you'll find yours, too. 

Finding the Habit

All authors are supposed to carefully read every letter of their books several times before declaring that it's done. You read it to proof it for grammatical and punctuation errors. You read it to make sure the plot is hanging together and everything makes sense. You read it to make sure it's perfect, and you read it with a critical eye. But once you're done, check for bad habits.

Scan your book instead. Look through each page quickly and see if anything starts to stick out to you, or if you start to see the same things over and over. You can find all sorts of things when you stop being careful and start being quick; things you might never notice otherwise. Once you find a bad habit, you can figure out how to re-word the passages that contain this less-than-perfect writing. And once you know you've got the habit, you'll always be aware of it and you'll end up being a better writer because of it. 

Writing 101: Proper Use of the Word Y'All

Every writer who wants to unmistakably make a character southern uses it...and at least half of them get it wrong. It's y'all, and it's been offending southern readers since the first author used it the wrong way. Before you attempt to insert it into one of your books, make sure you understand proper use of the word y'all...or you'll end up hearing about it from me. 

We're in the South, Y'all

I touched on the topic of y'all briefly in my apostrophes post, but it's so commonly mis-used it deserves to have its very own spotlight. First, let's all get clear on the meaning of y'all right here and now.

If you read my post, you know how to use apostrophes, and you know that y'all is really you all. The apostrophe takes the place of the o and the u to create this contraction. So every time you see y'all, think you all. The phrase means the same thing as all of you or (as Yankees might say) you guys. 

It's a plural word, and that's the most important thing you've got to remember about y'all. It only addresses more than one, because Robby by himself cannot be an all. Robby and Johnny can be an all because together they're two guys. For example, it's totally appropriate for me to say Robby and Johnny, y'all come in here and get your lunch. But I would never say Robby, y'all come in here and get your lunch.

So many, many authors get that wrong. The word means you all, and actual southerners only use it when they're addressing more than one. Replace y'all with a phrase that means the same thing, and you'll see what I mean:

Robby, all of you come in here and get your lunch. 

Robby, who's out there alone, is going to think the speaker has gone crazy. And readers who see the error are going to roll their eyes...maybe away from your book, and onto the next. Y'all means the same as all of you and it's always plural. 

But I know why people get confused...because y'all's is also considered to be a usable word in the south. 

Y'all's

 It looks like the worst of grammar, but honestly it's not as incorrect as it appears. Y'all's is a double contraction that's commonly spoken south of the Mason Dixon line, and if you're writing true southern dialect it's bound to crop up. Do you know exactly what it means? 

Just extend it to find out. We know that y'all is you all, so what does it mean when you add the new apostrophe and and s to the word? The same thing it always means -- it's possessive.

Y'all's refers to something that belongs to you all. For example, I could have said Robby and Johnny, y'all's lunch is getting cold instead, and it would still be correct. If something belongs to more than one and I'm addressing those owners directly, the thing becomes y'all's. 

Some sources might argue with me on that one; they say the possessive form of the word is more properly spelled y'alls. Some grammarians compare y'all's to its, which is a possessive form that does not have an apostrophe. It's one of those confusing rules of English. However, according to the urban dictionary (the authority on such things), the word is properly spelled out as y'all's. I find this to be the less confusing spelling, at any rate, because you can look at it and figure out exactly what you're doing. Start deleting apostrophes arbitrarily, and you're bound to get yourself screwed up.

Books on Film: Robin Hood

At some point, everyone gets exposed to the heroic tale of Robin Hood. Everyone's heard at least one version of it, or seen one of the many movie adaptations. The story of the bandit who robs from the rich and gives to the poor is so old, and it's been re-told so much, no one really know just where it comes from...or whether or not it's true. But a great many brave souls have written books, and turned them into films, in order to depict this hero.

Only a few have done it well. 

The Story

The oldest recorded mention of Robin Hood can be found in a 15th century poem. It references "Robyn hode in scherewode stod," which becomes Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest. A 16th century reference places Robin in Loxley near South Yorkshire, an area that's been associated with Robin dating as far back as 1422. Records do indicate that a man named Robin Hood lived around Wakefield, Yorkshire, in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Piers Plowman created the first "rhymes of Robin Hood" known to exist, from the late 14th century, but these have not survived. Others referenced them in the 15th and 16th centuries, long enough for history to be blurry. In the earliest versions of the story Robin is known for being an excellent archer and a sworn enemy to the Sheriff of Nottingham. Little John, the Miller's son and Will Scarlet all appear in early versions of the legend.

Over the centuries, Robin Hood's legend grew. Even Shakespeare referenced Robin Hood in his works. The first printed version of the tale is A Gest of Robyn Hode, circa 1475. It's more a collection of short stories than a full-length novel, each one playing out like an episode.  

The earliest plays about Robin were written in the late 1500s. The first novel about the hero was created in 1883, when Howard Pyle wrote The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. It's this version that solidifies Robin's reputation as a philanthropist who takes from the wealthy to give to the less fortunate. This novel also made him a contemporary of King Richard (the Lionheart).

It's an image he still has today.

In The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, the reader follows Robin's path to becoming a famous outlaw. He gets into a conflict in the forest and begins recruiting merry men while evading the authorities. Robin and Little John battle with staffs, he meets Friar Tuck and he continuously battles the Sheriff of Nottingham. At the end of the novel, Robin and his men receive a royal pardon from the returning King Richard (who's been away at the Crusade).

It was Pyle's first novel, and a deviation from the original ballads. In the earliest versions of the story, Robin isn't the good guy -- he's just a thief and a bad-tempered one at that. The book was a huge hit, and it cemented Robin's more heroic image for all the succeeding generations.

The story is so well-known, the legend so entertaining, it very naturally lends itself to adaptation. By the time the novel appeared, Robin Hood had already appeared in poetry and plays...so why not in film, too?

The Film(s)

The very first film adaptation of the story happened way, way back in 1908. A silent English short film, Robin Hood and his Merry Men features Robin as a former earl and a pretty Maid Marian who loves him anyway. America made their own version, titled simply Robin Hood, in 1912. This 30-minute version includes characters like Friar Tuck and the villainous sheriff, in addition to Robin and Marian. Not to be outdone, the Brits made another silent film in 1912, this time called Robin Hood Outlawed. 

Lots more movies followed. Three more were made in 1913. One was Ivanhoe, one of the more popular versions of the story. But Robin Hood wouldn't gain real movie fame until 1922, when he was Douglas Fairbanks. Fairbanks was one of the biggest silent film stars of all time, and this version is still considered to be a classic. It had the biggest sets Hollywood had ever built, up to that point, and incredible action scenes involving swordfighting, Castle-climbing and all sorts of other thrilling moments.

But talkies were invented, and the story had to be adapted again...and again and again and again. More feature-length Robin Hood films followed in 1946, 1948, 1950 and 1951. Three Robin Hood movies were made in 1952 alone, one a live-action joint by Disney, who would go on to make a much more definitive version of the story later. It was turned into film again in 1954, 1959, 1960, 1962 and a 1964 version moves Robin to 1930s Chicago and stars Frank Sinatra as "Robbo" (I'm not kidding).

     

 Someone has made a Robin Hood film pretty much every single year since. Some are unwatchable, some are good...only a handful are worth mentioning.

 

The 1973 version of Robin Hood, made by Disney, is undoubtedly one of the best ever. It was actually a low-budget production for the megastudio. The 21st animated feature the studio produced, this version of the story turned Robin and all his pals into animals who act a great deal like us. Alan-a-Dale appears as a rooster who narrates the tale, and Robin's heroic reputation is fully intact. In the end, Robin gets his royal pardon and goes off to marry the lovely Maid Marian.

But it wasn't until 1991 that someone created the film version of the story. A box office monster and star-studded action fest, Robin Hood:Prince of Thieves starred Kevin Costner as the title character and I personally hate it. I'll never forgive Costner for not at least attempting an English accent of any kind. And Christian Slater? It's an insult to moviegoers. Still, this is considered one of the best versions of the story and it's one of the few to feature Will Scarlet (the aforementioned Slater), though he's been Robin's companion since the 1400s.

This time, Robin isn't just a nobleman but a Crusader. He joined King Richard, who was famously separated from his men and captured before he could get home. This time, Robin is given a Saracen buddy that he's brought with him from Crusade and he has to deal with a witch instead of just a crooked sheriff. In this version, Will Scarlet is Robin's half-brother (oddly). But the ending does remain intact: King Richard shows up to pardon Robin just as he's marrying his lady love, Maid Marian.

An ambitious version of the story was created with Russell Crowe in the lead in 2010. This time, Robin Longstride (Crowe) is an archer in King Richard's army and a veteran of the Third Crusade. He returns home with friends Little John, Allan A'Dayle and Will Scarlett, but runs into all sorts of problems. When he makes a promise to Robert Loxley to return a sword, things start to get all mixed up.

Robin assumes Loxley's identity and returns to a homeland in turmoil, as King John has now assumed the throne. This film doesn't end with a pardon for Robin. In a deviation from the original novel, King John labels him as an outlaw for life instead.

Which One's the Best?

And they're all good films, I'm sure, but if you want to see the very best adaptation of Robin Hood that ever was made, you'll get the one from 1938. It's the only one with Errol Flynn, and that makes it the only one worth watching. 

The Adventures of Robin Hood is the clear winner when it comes to film adaptations (sorry, Disney). This swashbuckling epic was filmed in stunning Technicolor. Errol's real-life love interest Olivia de Havilland (perhaps better-known to moviegoers as Melanie Hamilton from Gone With the Wind) played Marian and the incomparable Claude Rains rounds out the cast. 

Richard the Lionheart has been taken captive by the Austrians (historically accurate) and Prince John has assumed power. Taxes have been raised, and the people are discontent. All of this reflects the real history. Only Robin, Earl of Locksley, opposes him. The archer even boldly goes right to the castle to insult John to his face, then eludes all of his men in an impressive bit of heroics. It's enough to impress the watching Maid Marian, anyway.

Robin flees to Sherwood Forest with friend Will Scarlet. Together they meet Little John, who spars with Robin. Soon enough Robin meets Friar Tuck and the band of Merry Men is complete.

It's a heck of a good movie, and Flynn is the definitive Robin Hood. He became indelibly associated with the role, and he and his Maid Marian would go on to star in 4 more movies together. The flick won three Oscars, and was nominated for Best Picture. It pays decent enough homage to the 19th-century novel and captures much of the flavor of the original Robin Hood legend, and it's one version you absolutely shouldn't miss.

From the Trenches: Going It Alone

Being great doesn't mean you're going to be successful. There have been lots of great writers who still had to work hard before their words were read. Sometimes, it takes a long time for everyone else to realize just how great you are. 

Walt Whitman had something to share, and he decided that he was going to share it. He's arguably the most famous American poet...and he was a self-published author. 

Lighting the Fire

Walt Whitman was born Walter in 1819 Long Island. He was one of 9, and called Walt so he wouldn't be confused with his father. They had severe financial difficulties, and Walt would later recall his childhood as being unhappy. He finished his school at age 11 and began working for a living. 

Young Walt worked for lawyers as an office boy, and later worked on the printing machines for local newspapers. He learned how the machines worked and picked up typesetting. Whitman continued to gravitate toward the written word when looking for work. He accepted a job working for an editor at a major paper, and sent some of his own poetry anonymously to the New York Mirror. He moved to New York, but financial trouble in the city made it hard for him to find work. Eventually he moved back to Long Island and began teaching, but was ultimately unhappy with the work.

He continued to work in the papers and eventually worked his way into editorial positions. And like many authors, he read. Whitman would later say that he was "simmering, simmering, simmering." All the poems were burning slowly away inside him. It took another poet to set it all ablaze. He read The Poet, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 1844. It called for a new and unique poet from the United States to step forward.

So Walt Whitman did. As he said, "Emerson brought me to a boil." 

He went to work. And in May 1855, he went to the clerk at the United States District Court in New Jersey to register the title Leaves of Grass. Like many self-published authors, he had to buy his own copyright. Luckily, he knew people in the printing business. Whitman next went to Fulton Street in Brooklyn, where two of his friends owned a small printing shop. Walt knew typesetting from his experience in the newspaper business, so he did most all of that himself.

It didn't sell very well. He worked for years on that collection of poems, and had enough gumption to get his own copyright and do his own printing and self-published the darned thing, besides. When sales were few and decidedly tepid, Whitman could have easily given up. 

He didn't. The very first edition of Leaves of Grass was 95 pages long, with 12 poems that had no names. Whitman made it small enough, he said later, to fit in one's pocket. He hoped that it would make people want to "take me along with them and read me in the open air." He printed up 800, 200 with covers made of green cloth. There is only one library in the US known to have purchased one of these first editions. It's in Philadelphia.

One copy was sent to Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom Whitman admired. Emerson praised it, and sent a letter back to Whitman complimenting the work. It was enough to fuel Walt's fire to write and succeed. He produced edition number 2, now 384 pages in length. It had a pretty cover this time, and was priced at one dollar.

He relentlessly perfected his work, something to which all self-published authors can probably relate. Whitman added titles to his poems, then began to write more poems. He re-arranged them and then did it again. Some he removed altogether. He published so many different versions of the book, in fact, scholars still aren't clear on just how many times Leaves was revamped. Depending on the source, Whitman created 9 editions. Others say there were only 6.

By 1860, he'd snagged a publisher. Unfortunately, shortly after they produced their edition of the work the company declared bankruptcy, and they were unable to pay him. Whitman got around $250, and the original plates were sent to a different publisher in Boston. This resulted in a new edition, 456 pages in length.

More editions would come out, and many more years would go by, before Whitman was prepared to be finished with the book. He created his final edition in 1891 and declared in a letter to a friend that it was "at last complete."

It now had nearly 400 poems. Like previous editions, the last carried an updated photo of Walt Whitman -- looking distinguished this time with a full beard.

Leaves got a lot of heavy criticism; perhaps this is why Whitman was intent on perfecting it. One critic said that Whitman should have burned the book after writing it, and one critic called the book "a mass of stupid filth" in a newspaper. Whitman printed one of his bad reviews in the second edition of Leaves of Grass.

Walt Whitman wrote in the poetry trenches every single day, and never stopped. He died shortly after completing his final edition of the book, just when he'd finally finished...if he ever really thought he had. He relentlessly perfected and polished his craft, and always tried to improve upon what he'd done in the past. Today, Leaves of Grass sells thousands of copies every single year. It's studied in classrooms and quoted among word lovers, recited in public and re-posted online. Whitman has now been dead over 100 years, and most critics agree when it comes to his now-famous collection of poetry.

It's pretty perfect.