Word counts for major public domain classics vary by edition, translation, and whether front matter is included. The figures below are from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions, which exclude most editorial apparatus (Source: Project Gutenberg, gutenberg.org). All reading times are calculated at 300 WPM.
The 20 longest classic novels available on warpread
| Rank | Title | Author | Words (approx) | Time at 300 WPM | Read free |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | War and Peace | Tolstoy | 580,000 | 32.2 hrs | Read free |
| 2 | Les Misérables | Hugo | 530,000 | 29.4 hrs | Read free |
| 3 | The Count of Monte Cristo | Dumas | 464,000 | 25.8 hrs | — |
| 4 | Don Quixote | Cervantes | 430,000 | 23.9 hrs | Read free |
| 5 | The Brothers Karamazov | Dostoevsky | 364,000 | 20.2 hrs | Read free |
| 6 | Anna Karenina | Tolstoy | 349,000 | 19.4 hrs | Read free |
| 7 | Middlemarch | Eliot | 316,000 | 17.6 hrs | Read free |
| 8 | Moby-Dick | Melville | 206,000 | 11.4 hrs | Read free |
| 9 | Crime and Punishment | Dostoevsky | 212,000 | 11.8 hrs | Read free |
| 10 | Great Expectations | Dickens | 185,000 | 10.3 hrs | Read free |
| 11 | Little Women | Alcott | 185,000 | 10.3 hrs | Read free |
| 12 | Jane Eyre | Brontë | 183,000 | 10.2 hrs | Read free |
| 13 | Germinal | Zola | 163,000 | 9.1 hrs | Read free |
| 14 | Tess of the d'Urbervilles | Hardy | 163,000 | 9.1 hrs | Read free |
| 15 | Dracula | Stoker | 161,000 | 8.9 hrs | Read free |
| 16 | Mansfield Park | Austen | 160,000 | 8.9 hrs | Read free |
| 17 | Emma | Austen | 155,000 | 8.6 hrs | Read free |
| 18 | The Iliad | Homer | 150,000 | 8.3 hrs | Read free |
| 19 | Wuthering Heights | Brontë | 107,000 | 5.9 hrs | Read free |
| 20 | Huckleberry Finn | Twain | 112,000 | 6.2 hrs | Read free |
What "long" actually means in reading time
The numbers above represent total reading time at a comfortable pace. The practical implications:
- War and Peace at 350 WPM across 30 days = just over 1 hour per day. See the 30-day reading plan.
- The Brothers Karamazov at 300 WPM across 3 weeks = approximately 1 hour per day.
- Middlemarch at 300 WPM in two weeks = 1 hour 15 minutes per day.
The longest classics are long in absolute word count but not unmanageable in a daily reading habit. At 300 WPM, one hour of reading covers 18,000 words — or roughly two chapters of War and Peace.
The shortest classics
For the other end of the spectrum — books you can finish this weekend — see the weekend reading guide and the Books Under 200 Pages collection.
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