Definitely one of the greats. Her characters have a life that is missing in quite a few of the other greats. Her world building and story telling are fantastic, especially considering she didn’t do the kind of historic world building Tolkien engaged in before even telling his stories. J. K. Rowling definitely belongs on the list of great authors in general, not just great female authors.
Some people are about to lose their marbles but just going by the numbers: J. K. Rowling.
She authored the 4th best selling single book of all time and the best selling book series of all time, by quite the margin.
Pfft. Rowling’s sold an estimated 600-650 million books (22 titles). Agatha Christie sold an estimated 2-4 billion books (86 titles).
Interesting. I guess there is a lot of metrics and rules to apply to make a count. Still, she’s like 2nd?
4th, apparently after Christie, Barbara Cartland, and Danielle Steel. What entertains me is in 5th is Enid Blyton with 800 books!
7th of male and female authors.
I’d say that would be considered “most successful”
“Best” is very subjective
Best is always subjective when it comes to art, but I think she is squarely in the safe zone for wearing the label.
Sure, but when you asking about a specific profession, that seems the most obvious way to interpret that question.
Unless OP just wants to find a nice female author to hang out with (in that case we should probably exclude all the dead ones).
Could also just be to start a discussion or find new authors to check out
Financial success is a poor measure for the worth of artists of any stripe. If anything, it has an inverse relationship.
Pretty sure a lot of artists that are just scratching by would disagree, but fair enough.
Counterpoint: If success is what we base this on, then E. L. James (50 shades of grey) is a very good author.
Sure, if you’re talking about insurance salespeople or stockbrokers. But in the creative field, things are a little deeper.
Definitely one of the greats. Her characters have a life that is missing in quite a few of the other greats. Her world building and story telling are fantastic, especially considering she didn’t do the kind of historic world building Tolkien engaged in before even telling his stories. J. K. Rowling definitely belongs on the list of great authors in general, not just great female authors.