Lord of the Rings and Narnia got pretty big.

In the 21st century, I can’t think of any. In all of history, many have had more impact. They did not have the competition of television or film though. (Some may have existed at the same time, but those forms of media were not as prevalent as they are now.)

Well, are you going to name those which had more impact? :)

Narnia didn't really have the lasting power of LotR outside of christian circles tho, imo. The movies get big and then die off. There hasn't been a series that got past 4 of the 7. Sometimes schools read LWW but that's really it for the series.

LotR is big and continues to be big, mostly thanks to Peter Jackson. I'm glad the Hobbit movies didn't kill the franchise, and RoP is doing pretty well all things considered

I think Dune has potential, but the books are such a slog for the average scifi movie viewer imo

Depends on how you define "Impact". If you're talking about children/young adult/fantasy literature and the Impact of stories in that genre, the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's influence and impact on writers such as George R.R. Martin and Neil Gaiman who have both released some of the best fantasy stories of all time kinda deserves to be mentioned..Tolkien also influenced the creating of famous video games such as Zelda! JK Rowling has been tight lipped on Tolkien's influence on her works, but you see it here and there as well. That being said, I do believe that JK Rowling is indeed the best selling fantasy author of all time, and there is a good reason why. The Harry Potter stories are fine works, but she hasn't yet reached the status of influencing others to create works that are considered classics in their own right or transcend genres and entire mediums, like Tolkien has. She'll get there though..in time.

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The Chronicles of Narnia were written between 1950 and 1956. Lord of the Rings was huge even before Peter Jackson. This is, after all, r/books

Lord of the Rings isn't just "pretty big" it is the grandfather of modern day fantasy as we know it

The Bible comes to mind. The Communist Manifesto. On the Origin of Species. The Little Red Book. Plato’s Republic.

But nah, probs Harry Potter.

I know this, but in the constant barrage of content and shortening attention spans we have today, movies are keeping some big stories from the past alive, and are becoming part of the universe begun by the books.

I assumed OP was talking about books that had a long lasting impression that were commercially successful today. Charles Dickens and Mark Twain were big for their time, but I wouldn't expect an adaptation of Great Expectations to generate billions in revenue the way Harry Potter did.

Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Narnia, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Da Vinci Code, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, War & Peace, Gone with the Wind, Animal Farm, Dune, The Bible.

I don’t think it’s really fair to compare them. Harry Potter was doing this during a time when reading had become a niche community. Those books were doing it when it was the popular medium for storytelling. I mean, I’d take a good book over a good movie, but I don’t think I’m in the majority.

Digital media has really changed the landscape quite a bit, and books in general aren't as popular as they once were due to lots of new competition in media and entertainment that are so accessible at everyone's fingertips today. I would say that Harry Potter is the last book series to have the kind of impact that it did, but there are lot of others as you go further back.

A Tale of Two Cities is probably the most impactful book I can think of off hand, if we are talking about widespread popularity and staying-power.

Twilight. 50 Shades of Grey. It's not the first pop culture book phenomenon.

Rowling is the best selling author because she took the more exciting bits of LOTR, essentially dumbed them down and made them highly marketable. Not a criticism but i think it explains her success

This is going to sound kind of crazy, but I would argue that Le Mort d’Artur probably had one of the biggest impacts on the world of any work of fiction (if you exclude the Bible and other holy books) and I think it would be classified as fantasy if written today though it’s best known as a classical romance

The Arthurian legends became so well known that by the 13th century they were indistinguishable from actual history and were even relied upon by English kings to justify the invasion of other countries- and not just in the crusades. Edward I (hammer of the scots) relied on these stories to justify to the Pope invading Scotland and other parts of Britain (and ultimately Ireland too). Down the road, even once Arthur was recognized as just a legend, Victorians still relied upon the mythology to justify colonial expansion as part of their culture.

More recently you could probably look to Dickens as being a cornerstone for part of a larger cultural revolution as well as creating new genres of literature and he was big even in his own time. But I don’t think that’s exactly what you mean.

And then there are the Russians. again, they’re not fantasy but Russian literature in the 20th century was seriously groundbreaking And still has massive impacts on many modern writers.

I guess the question is “what do you mean by big?” Read/known by a large part of the population? Having an impact on culture? Longevity? Or just how many $ they earned?

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton was as ubiquitous as Harry Potter for many years.

Yes, you might be right! Also, perhaps part of Rowling's success stems from the change in global markets, economy and digital media since Tolkien's time. Rowling, along with other newer writers, are able to tap into a literature market that is part of our now globalized and digitized economy which makes their works accessible no matter how niche of a work they may publish. Rowling's works, even when initially published, were able to be purchased and read by folks on opposite ends of the planet in a matter of seconds at best, or in a few weeks' time at worst. Also the tightly interwoven relationships between internet, film and literary media that we now take for granted, gives newer writers such as Rowling the advantage in getting seen and known easier over older writers such as Tolkien who had to wait for a ship to leave the docks or a plane to leave the airstrip for his books to travel...

Dickens published most of his novels in serial format, releasing them in sections at a time. Anticipation would build and crowds would clamor as the release of each new serial drew near. The Pickwick Papers’ final installment was printed 100 times more than its first.

> In at least two cases, serial fiction sparked riots. In 1841, a riot erupted in New York as avid readers awaited the fate of little Nell in Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shoppe. And the following year, Parisian readers rioted to find out the ending of a particularly suspenseful episode of Eugene Sue's The Mysteries of Paris.

https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/charles-dickens-show-stealing-entrance-to-serial-fiction

Harry Potter may be more popular than most other books, but I don’t think there have been any Potter riots.

Over time, the serial format fell by the wayside. Stephen King famously experimented with it when he released The Green Mile; it was originally published in six parts.

We only know the hype around specific books from our generation. I‘m pretty sure that Dumas and Jules Vernes books had similar hypes.

The Little House books, the Outsiders, Gone With The Wind (there is a made for TV movie called something like the Search for Scarlett that will demonstrate how much of a cultural phenomenon that book and movie were).

It's also worth mentioning the impact Shakespeare had on the English language, although they weren't written as books.

Sherlock Holmes as well, still making big movies.

There is a book phenomenon that's making as big a modern impact as Rowling though, and that's the Marvel comic book movies.

Thrown in Ian Fleming's James Bond series.

For books older than it of course, from books that were influential in a literary sense like Iliad and Odyssey or Shakespeare or Lord of The Rings to those that had an impact on the society like Plato's Republic or Marx's works or The Prince,(Or the five religious books of the most influential religions for the epitome of social influence) to the scientifically influential books to a tons of other examples, but for the newer books I can't think of anything and I think the current volume of available books and how easy it's to access them and find your own niche although a very welcome change makes it hard for a single book or series to stand out as much.

I'd say The Wizard of Oz series made a big splash.

Good shout

Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys I would say fit into this. Generations, now, have read these books and are still passing them down. Heck, my 8-year old son is nearly as big a fan of Nancy Drew as I was at his age.

😭💀

Missing the point a little aren’t we?

Better answers are LOTR, little house on the prairie, wizard of oz, the outsiders, Twilight, 50 shades

I don’t think the question is about which other books generate big movies. The HP books themselves were huge cultural moments and were sold out within hours in many places.

I am not aware of any Sherlock Holmes work being re-edited in the past couple of decades, let alone generating such expectation as the HP book series. (The lack of expectation is relatively normal, the SH works were written and published long ago, the author is dead, there is no new book coming out. They also do not appeal to people of all ages and all genders the way HP does).

Uncle Tom's Cabin was enormously popular and had a lot of real world impact in how people thought about slavery. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is similar and had a real impact on food safety (even though that wasn't the intention).

Not even close. The HP books were instant successes globally, publishing houses around the world couldn’t get them translated fast enough to meet expectations. They were sold out within days or even hours in many places. None of the classics had that kind of extended success because the world wasn’t working that way and there were infinitely fewer literate people with an interest in their fiction.

Another book series that got a similar reaction from readers (although from a lot fewer) was the Millenium trilogy.

But the thing with HP is that it appealed to children, YA, and grownups. And both to boys and girls.

I’d argue not. It’s still very successful and every new book generates expectation. But it’s a grownup story, whereas HP was targeted to children and became popular with adults too. When a new book was coming it was incredible the expectation that generated. Not even the last trilogy of Star Wars moved the masses like that. The HP books were sold out within hours - all the parodies about people spending the night queuing at the door of an Apple Store … that’s how it was outside libraries when the next HP was coming out.

I complete agree with all your comments fyi! It’s more than just HP being popular. HP was a PHENOMENON! It got EVERYBODY reading. Kids and adults alike. It was huge. Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, anything else listed . . . Where is it’s theme parks? Broadway shows? Multi-series movies? Events? Name one of those things that hits ALL OF THESE.

That’s Harry Potter.