I think because the Bible Belt republican wackos keep burning books so classics are selling again since the classics are being burnt. It’s a classic capitalist circle.

I recently purchased the complete Sherlock Holmes collection.

I think classics, like Middlemarch, remain hot sellers, especially with the variety of paperback editions available. Based on Middlemarch’s rank on the Amazon USA list, selling around ten copies a day seems reasonable. However, opinions on what constitutes reasonable sales can vary.

No, classics are not hot sellers. You will never see one on a bestseller list, unless Netflix has a new adaptation.

The classics do, however have very, very large total sales: they were a bestseller once, and they keep selling, a few every month, forever.

I buy more classics than new books overall, there’s just something about a piece of culture that has stood the test of time.

Classics move all the time and are reprinted all the time.

They still get bought because of classes that use them. I know I bought some of them for summer reading due to my school having a list.

My information comes from 20 years ago:

Before the 21st Century book sales were tracked by the New York Times (and others) by surveying various booksellers around the country. The books were then ranked, but sales numbers were unknown except to the publishers who often did not share that info. In 2001 Bookscan was introduced which counted book sales based on the ISBNs scanned in at point-of-sale. In a surprise, it became apparent that the classics sold far better than had been thought and and that led to a boom in classics publishing. I’m told the introduction of Soundscan led to a similar boom in country western music.

I don’t know the answer to this, but I imagine one of the factors at play is that most used book retailers are flooded with copies of popular classics. If I didn’t already own Middlemarch and wanted a copy, I’d head to my local used bookstore and get a copy for ~$3/4. The fact that the authors for classics are no longer alive means I would always go for used copies over new.

So the number of copies that are being purchased and read includes more than just how many copies Amazon is selling new. Also, I wonder how this metric is arrived at. Because if ~10 copies of Middlemarch sold per day is just reflective of one of the many, many editions of the book available on Amazon, then I could see it. But if it’s all editions of Middlemarch, then that does seem a little low. We’re talking about the number one book retailer in the world.

Curious to know the answer to this too. There has been a trend in the last 10-15 years to dismiss literature and reading (I’ve met so many people in that period who proudly declared they don’t read), so I’ve often wondered if people are still into them.

Additionally, are they still assigned readings in high school and college (outside of English/Literature majors)?

Speaking as someone who’s worked in both new and used books, classics are purchased far more often from used retailers than new. I worked at a massive used bookstore and we couldn’t keep most of the classics on the shelves, but at the new retailer I worked at I found they only really sold if they had a fancy binding or cover.

well most actual classics are in the public domain now and can be read for free so yeah sells of those books would be kind of low when you can obtain them for free.

I worked in a bookshop and was always very frustrated that we only ever kept one copy of The Tenant of Windfell Hall in stock at a time because it would only be on the shelf for a day or two before it was bought, and there was another week wait for it to come back in again.

I imagine 10,000s are purchased by schools every year.

I was an independent bookseller for 7 and 1/2 years. Yes, the classic still sell. And, a bunch of the publishers will reissue the classics with different covers or forwards to get people excited about them. I’m pretty sure Harper Collins did this as well as Penguin classics. Penguin Random House would always have good deals on the Penguin classics, so I could set up a display and give good discounts to the customers.