Asimov is the only author to have published books in all ten categories of the Dewey Decimal System?

Did you know that Asimov is the only author to have published books in all ten categories of the Dewey Decimal System?

No, because that claim is not true, despite the fact that it is repeated in numerous lists of "amazing but true facts" that circulate on the Internet, and even shows up in the third edition of The New York Public Library Desk Reference. Asimov himself mentioned this a couple of times, but always by prefacing it with the clause "I have been told by a librarian that...". The reason that the claim is not true is because not one of Asimov's books was classified in the 100s category of Philosophy. Here are the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System:

• 000 - Generalities
• 100 - Philosophy
• 200 - Religion
• 300 - Social Sciences
• 400 - Languages
• 500 - Pure Sciences
• 600 - Applied Sciences & Technology
• 700 - Arts
• 800 - Literature
• 900 - History & Geography

Although a great number of his books were classified in the 500s and the 600s, there are three other categories that were sparsely represented (for Asimov, that is):

• 200s - 7 titles
• 400s - 2 titles [Words From History and Words From the Myths]
• 700s - 3 titles [Visions of the Universe, Asimov's Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan, and Isaac Asimov Presents Superquiz]

A more accurate statement is that Isaac Asimov is the only author who has so many well written books in so many different categories of library classification.