I have evaluated the books in their proper order, that is the sequence of publication
of the French originals.
Do not pay attention to the numbers on the spines of Hodder Dargaud's English versions: they are entirely (with one exception - they do manage to work out that Asterix the Gaul comes first) out of sequence. I suspect that this ordering came about because at the time the books were not translated in sequence - however now they have all been translated there is no excuse for Hodder Dargaud not to correct the numbering in future editions.
Paging Mr. Confusion…
No, I have not got all the pages wrong. Following the practice of other Asterix sites, any page numbers are those of the actual strip and not the book as a whole. The later books include the page numbers on the strip itself; for the earlier books you will need to subtract the requisite number of pages (four in my case).
Going Solo…
From 1962 until 1977 the Asterix books were written by Rene Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. Goscinny died in 1977 leaving a draft version of Asterix in Belgium, later completed and illustrated by Uderzo. All the subsequent Asterix books have been both written and illustrated by Uderzo. I'm sure the artist himself would acknowledge that the jointly written books of Asterix's prime are somewhat better overall than his solo efforts. However Uderzo remains a great illustrator and the artwork in the later books is as splendid as ever - so they are still essential purchases.
Movies can flick off...
Apart of a couple of early ones, the animated versions of Asterix are an insult to the intelligence so I've ignored them. I have therefore not included the books that masquerade as bona fide Asterix adventures but are in fact tie-ins of the films.
I have yet to see the Gerard Depardieu live-action version, but my expectations are not high.
Some Kessler pinched by a knave...
Since originally writing this site I have read Peter Kessler's fine Complete guide to Asterix (Hodder 1995). Kessler includes some details that had totally passed me over, or that he has learnt in person from Uderzo; and also holds some differences of opinion about the relative worth of the books (he likes the characters of Justforkix and Pepe, for example). For the sake of completeness I have included information gleaned from Kesslers book into my analyses. These are acknowledged with a '(Kessler)'.