The longest written book in the world word count

The key is to write a compelling story, no matter what the word count is. I was using the list in order to memorize the books of the new testament, in order from shortest to longest books. It is available online if you have enough time to read it. There have been some truly massive books written over the years. At 27 letters, this is pretty long and only one shorter than antidisestablishmentarianism, often cited as the longest english word. A song of ice and fire is written by american author george r. Each book section below details the breakdown of these points of view as a word count and as a percentage. Ever wondered which are the longest fantasy book series of all time. The longest word in the oxford english dictionary is. The truth is the longest piece of fiction in the world to dateis a fanfiction. Looking at your question you say english literature. It, however, isnt even close to being the longest book ever written. In memory of light, the longawaited chapter the last battle registered a staggering 81,200 words, whereas the xaxis on the above chart is cut at 20,000.

Illustrated fantasy novel manuscript typed singlespaced with 15,145 pages in 10 volumes. Oct 31, 2020 all of these are average book word count ranges and should not be taken as the definitive word count you must reach in your book. But savoring a book of, say, 800 pages or longer is a project. I referenced the lexham hebrew bible for ot books and the na27 for nt books, and heres what i got. No word count, but based on its 5200 page count, gordana makes the list at number. This is going by word count in the original languages not any english translation of the bible. The worlds longest sentence 5237 words mark virtue.

What is the longest literary work ever written in terms of word count. Dec 12, 2012 however, in the past it has been disputed whether or not it is a real word proteins are named after the chemicals involved in making them. Find out how long your favourite books are and how they compare to their. There are an estimated 370 million chinese characters used. The count of monte cristo at 375695 words and 1276 pages in the penguin. It is supposedly the worlds longest published novel in english at 2. Top 10 longest novels in the english language listverse. Gombrichs book offers a wealth of information written in a conversational and entertaining style. Here are just a few books that took their authors years to complete, but in most cases the results were worth the wait. Gone with the wind by margaret mitchell 10 years it took author margaret mitchell a decade to complete her pulitzer pricewinning novel, but there were a couple of interesting factors contributing to this feat. Character count is at the best estimation of spaces, written characters, and punctuation. If you are an author of a book or know of a book s accurate wordcount, contact me.

Top 10 longest novel books in the world world most. This is due in large part to the variety of sub genres within it and the trend for a book series with an ever greater. Oct 09, 2018 its not charles dickens bleak house with 360,947 words. The longest novel is artamene ou le grand cyrus, originally. Jun 24, 2019 this is one you might actually be able to pronounce if you take it one syllable at a time. A little history of the world educators guide 1 the yale university press educators guide to. What is the longest literary work ever written in terms of. The full book title contains 3777 words and reads as follows. Deconstructing five spooky picture books with spoilers and word counts. There is no definitive word count guide for nonfiction books due to the many subgenres. The 7 longest books in american history america fun fact.

Fleshing out an imagined historical world lends itself to a higher word count, so historical fiction tends to be closer to 100,000 words. We all know of outliers within each genre that have been published well under, or well over, these word counts. Wikipedia suggests it is some 1 million words longer than the malazan book of the fallen, its chief competition for the honor omitting shared universe tales like those of mercedes lackey and l. Discovered after dargers death, the manuscript has never been published. The guinness book of world records uses the character count to measure book length, and this french novel spanning seven volumes holds the guinness world. Based on this list compiled by nicole humphrey cook. This here ladys and gentlmen is the longest piece of literature in english. Nov 08, 2020 the highend romance novel word count is 100,000. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. The wheel of time main series consists of fourteen books and a prequel. The hobbit 95,022 words the lord of the rings 455,125 words the two towers 143,436 words the return of the king 4,462 words.

The guinness book of world records gives the honor to marcel prousts elephantine remembrance of things past, weighing in at 9,609,000 characters including spaces. The count of monte cristo at 375,695 words and 1,276 pages in the penguin classics english translation is one of the longest books ive read. The line chart implies a gradual change occurs between the data points, and deemphasizes that there are individual books being added to the cumulative word count of a series. In terms of pure word count, this 17th century novel. Reading length provides a calculation for the word count of this book, find out. The longest english words to ever appear in literature. Wordcount of unpopular and hefty epics looping world. Heres a list of the ten longest books of the bible.

Word count for famous novels, in ascending order by number of words. Basically, i cut and paste an entire book into microsoft word, then used the word count feature. The 7 longest books in american history america fun fact of. The series has 147 unique povs and 1,379 total povs, including the prequel, new spring.

Of course, rules are made to be broken, especially in literature. Nov 22, 2011 word count for famous novels organized by hawthorn mineart, under books, writing. The longest english words to ever appear in literature huffpost. Once youre done reading about the worlds longest novel, check out. What is the longest written story in english literature.

Word counts of the most popular books in the world foster grant uk. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of. The ultimate measure of a storys size is its wordcount, however, so the literary. For some perspective, harry potter and the sorcerers stone was around 78,000 words in its entirety. Daily, i keep track of what im writing, and as it adds up, i continue to monitor if the. Use these numbers as a baseline for your writing goals. Weighing in at over 4 million words, the wheel of time books are assuredly among the longest fantasy series out there, although reliable data on the matter is elusive. The longest fantasy series of all time how many of these have you.

Word count estimates are not guaranteed to be accurate. Search for word count totals in books word counters. No book that size is perfect, because excess is kind of the point. While a classic, i feel it could probably have done with a bit of an edit in some of the middle sections. Longest word has 189,819 letters, takes three hours to.

So itll be off on occasion, but it should get you relatively close for the average book. According to guinness, this was the longest german dictionary word in everyday usage. The longest book ever written yongle dadian during the ming dynasty at least 3,000 scholars spent 4 years, beginning in 1403, to work on the yongle dadian, an encyclopedia with 11,095 volumes and 22,877 chapters. Proust produced the first volume of his volume masterpiece in 1912 it was first published in 19. This book is the longest sentence ever written and then published 2020, by humor writer dave cowen, consists of one sentence that runs for 111,111 words and is a stream of consciousness memoir. A statistical analysis of robert jordans the wheel of time. The title translates to remembrance of things past. This fanfiction has 4,102,217 words, with more than 220 chapters. When it gets closer to 1,000, editors and agents may shy away. Bible software to find out which books are the longest, by original word count. Oct 17, 2014 2 marienbad my love by mark leach this books is considered to be the longest published book in the english language with over 2. Modesitt, as well as those that spread a story across multiple trilogies.

Kind of like how the lord of the rings was written as just one work. I think a stacked bar chart would better illustrate what the data represents essentially you would be showing floating boxes where each book was released, adding to the. Word counts of the most popular books in the world foster. Jeremiah 33,002 words genesis 32,046 words psalms 30,147 words ezekiel 29,918 words. Rework word counts of popular book series rework from. Its theme of involuntary memory is repeated through the course of following the narrators life, from childhood to adulthood. Ten of the worlds longest books for reading addicts.

The chapter by chapter breakdown sections lists the povs in order by. Pretty convinced that i just read the greatest fantasy ever written and itll be hard for. Many, yes, but there are exceptions due to the layout and font size of a particular book. Other commentators cite henry dargers in the realms of the unreal, a 15,000 page, handwritten tome that has yet to see print. Firstly, it is easy to count the number of pages or words in a digital. These books have spurned a 8season television show, game of. May 14, 2018 literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. Special thanks go to logos bible software for making determining the longest book of the bible by hebrew or greek word count much easier. Reading length is a participant in the amazon services llc associates program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to and affiliated sites. Over the years, there has been some controversy over what constitutes the worlds longest novel.

Discovered after dargers death, the manuscript has never been. Apr 15, 2020 the count of monte cristo at 375,695 words and 1,276 pages in the penguin classics english translation is one of the longest books ive read. Rated the longest novel ever by the guinness book of world records, theres no doubt that prousts masterpiece could quite easily double up as a mightily effective doorstop, with volumes clocking up nearly 1. Top 10 longest books in the world 2018 update articles. The story of the vivian girls illustrated fantasy novel manuscript typed singlespaced with 15,145 pages in 10 volumes. The word count of 969,000 words is true for the first edition of clarissa, but later editions seem to have climbed to above 1,000,000 words. Jan 02, 2020 the longest book of the new testament, and the twelfth longest book of the entire bible, is the gospel of luke with 19,482 greek words. For average word counts based on genre, see this handy reference. This is a list of the longest novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. In writing conferences, creative courses and in online forums, a beginning writer. For example, atonement has a word count of 123,378 and my utility comes up with 110,765 words. I figured this because the book has 150 psalms, and the runnerup in chapter count.

The world s longest sentence 5237 words by mark virtue 1980, aged 15 once upon a while back there was an ambitious contortionist who made up his mind he would try to conquer the twentyseventh highest dead volcano on neptune, with his tongue secretly hiding behind his overweight postmans swedish hifi set and the shoelaces of his persian ugh boots stubbornly caught on the corner of the. The longest literary works ever written mental itch. Its not war and peace by leo tolstoy with 587,287 words. However, it was not possible to find an estimate more accurate than above 1,000,000 words for these later editions. Ignoring the greats for a moment, the obvious answer to the first question is. Speedyblupi, the article clearly said the word count was guessed at. For now, 23 volumes of the book novel are published, they contain 11,338,105 words. However, the word below is a longer legitimate and official longest word in semieveryday usage, anyway. The books are written from different points of view povs. There are a number of factors deciding the word count, topmost being what sort of book it is.

The longest australian novel ever written was in 1976 by xavier herbert. Word count for famous novels organized commonplace book. The longest title of a book consists of 26,021 characters, and was achieved by vityala yethindra india in bishkek, kyrgyzstan, on 20 march 2019. I had created a list similar to this, for the new testament books. This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations. Dec 10, 2014 shakespeare himself used a nonce word, honorificabilitudinitatibus, in his early play loves labors lost. Much of the writing is, in grossmans words, differentiated and obfuscated. Women and men by joseph mcelroy 850,000 words, 1192 pages there are eight books longer. Jun 26, 2008 after some research ive found that the longest book in english and in the world is the blah story by nigel tomm.