One tally of history's most prolific authors

As Mental Floss acknowledges, declaring which author has published the most works isn't exactly clear-cut.

Some authors serialized their works; others write — or have their works written — under another name.

But just for the sake of entertainment, Mental Floss took a stab at answering the question: which author has published the most books in history?

The seven most prolific writers, by its calculations, are up ... and you might be surprised at some of their identities.