Length is the first thing readers ask about and the last thing reviews mention. The table below ranks the fifteen longest novels in this library by their actual word count as published here, with a reading time at 300 words per minute.
| Title | Author | Year | Words | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | 1869 | 580,000 | 32.2 |
| Les Misérables | Victor Hugo | 1888 | 530,000 | 29.4 |
| The Count of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | 1844 | 464,000 | 25.8 |
| The Brothers Karamazov | Fyodor Dostoevsky | 1880 | 360,000 | 20.0 |
| David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | 1850 | 358,000 | 19.9 |
| Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | 1878 | 350,000 | 19.4 |
| Middlemarch | George Eliot | 1871 | 316,000 | 17.6 |
| The Mysteries of Udolpho | Ann Radcliffe | 1794 | 280,000 | 15.6 |
| The Woman in White | Wilkie Collins | 1860 | 245,000 | 13.6 |
| Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoevsky | 1866 | 211,000 | 11.7 |
| Moby-Dick | Herman Melville | 1851 | 206,000 | 11.4 |
| The Origin of Species | Charles Darwin | 1859 | 201,000 | 11.2 |
| The Moonstone | Wilkie Collins | 1868 | 196,000 | 10.9 |
| Little Women | Louisa May Alcott | 1868 | 188,000 | 10.4 |
| The Hunchback of Notre-Dame | Victor Hugo | 1831 | 188,000 | 10.4 |
What the numbers mean
A 300,000-word novel is not simply three times as hard as a 100,000-word one. Victorian novels were written for serial publication, so they are built from short chapters that can be put down — which is why David Copperfield is easier to finish than many 150,000-word modern novels.
If you read an hour a day at about 250 words per minute, that is 15,000 words a day: 100,000 words takes a week, 300,000 takes three weeks, and War and Peace takes about six.
Related
Frequently asked questions
What is the longest classic novel?
War and Peace is the longest in this library at roughly 580,000 words; David Copperfield is the longest single-author Victorian novel here at about 358,000.
How long does it take to read War and Peace?
About 32 hours at 300 words per minute — roughly six weeks of an hour a day.
Is a long novel harder to finish?
Length is less predictive than structure. War and Peace and Middlemarch are long but episodic, which makes them easier to pause than a tightly plotted 250,000-word novel.
Should I read the longest classics first?
No. Start with something under 150,000 words; the long books reward a reader who already trusts the author.
Do the word counts include notes?
No — front matter, endnotes and colophons are excluded.
Which long novel is most worth the time?
Middlemarch and War and Peace are the two most often named; both are here in full.