Almost anyone challenged to name the top-selling British fiction author of the past seven years would get it right: JK Rowling. And the second biggest seller is reasonably guessable if you watch the book trade: Jacqueline Wilson.
But the third? To discover that, it was disclosed yesterday, you would have to delve into early childhood memory for images of rotund, grinning or grumpy little cartoon characters of the Mr Men and Little Miss series.
Their evergreen author, the late Roger Hargreaves, has emerged as less popular only than his fellow children's authors Rowling and Wilson. He sold more books between 1998 and 2005 than the top adult novelists of the period - including John Grisham, Danielle Steel, Ian Rankin and Stephen King - and also easily defeated Tolkien and Roald Dahl.
Hargreaves' role as Mr Triumphant emerges from a fiction league table compiled by the bookshop chain Waterstone's from figures logged by the trade research company Nielsen BookScan. The figures are based on till receipts from most British bookshops.
Hargreaves was an advertising executive who created his first Mr Men book in 1971 after his son asked: "What does a tickle look like?"
Mr Tickle was followed by Mr Greedy, Mr Nosey, Mr Happy, Mr Sneeze, Mr Bump and 64 other stories. Hargreaves died in 1988, aged 54. His son, Adam, has continued drawing and writing the books.
"Their universal appeal has made them ageless," said Scott Pack, Waterstone's head of buying, yesterday.
The chain's survey, conducted in an effort to highlight the increasing strength of "crossover" fiction between children and adults, demonstrates the power of steady sales over a number of years. Although The Da Vinci Code has sold 2.5m British copies this year, its author, Dan Brown, comes only seventh during the seven years surveyed. JRR Tolkien, despite a huge boost from the film trilogy, is eighth. In 12th place, Enid Blyton, who died in 1968, beats Philip Pullman and Roald Dahl.
The survey was published as Rowling's publisher, Bloomsbury, stepped up its promotion of the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It said that on publication night, July 16, Rowling would read extracts to 70 aspiring cub reporters aged eight to 16 in the great hall of Edinburgh Castle, and answer their questions on it the next day.
Waterstone's forecast that more than 250,000 adults would buy the hardback on its first day, making it the fastest-selling title in history.
Top 10
1 J K Rowling*
2 Jacqueline Wilson*
3 Roger Hargreaves*
4 Terry Pratchett
5 John Grisham
6 Danielle Steel
7 Dan Brown
8 JRR Tolkien
9 James Patterson
10 Ian Rankin
* denotes children's author
