The Bible, Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time have been named as the books which have had the greatest impact on the modern world in a British poll.

The survey, commissioned by the Folio Society, asked people to rank the books which have had the most influence on today’s society.

Religion and science took the top spots, with Albert Einstein’s Relativity in fourth place.

But fiction also made the top 10, with Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s dystopian novel about a society under surveillance, coming fifth in the list.

Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning classic To Kill a Mockingbird, about racism in the American South, was seventh.

The top 10 also featured Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica in sixth place and the Koran in eighth.

It was followed by The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith’s seminal work on economics, and The Double Helix by James Watson, on the discovery of the structure of DNA.

While northerners voted for the Bible as their most important book (41 per cent), southerners opted for Darwin’s The Origin of Species (37 per cent).

Tom Walker, the Folio Society’s editorial director, said he was surprised to find that there was “relatively little on economics despite the financial climate and only two, overtly political, fiction titles in the list”.

The study, conducted by YouGov, asked more than 2,000 members of the British public which three books from a list of 30 they considered to be the most valuable in its influence and significance on the modern world.

The 10 most influential books

1. The Bible (37 per cent)

2. The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (35 per cent)

3. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking (17 per cent)

4. Relativity, Albert Einstein (15 per cent)

5. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (14 per cent)

6. Principia Mathematica, Isaac Newton (12 per cent)

7. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (10 per cent)

8. The Koran (nine per cent)

9. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (seven per cent)

10. The Double Helix, James Watson (six per cent)

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