The Longest Novels Published in English, and How Long They Take to Read

Length in fiction is slippery. Page counts shift with typeface and trim size, and word counts for older books are often estimates.

That makes the numbers in this article approximate. The reading times below use a simple assumption of about 250 words per minute, a comfortable pace for most adults, so treat them as rough guides.

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel is usually named the longest novel in the English canon. The first two volumes appeared in December 1747, and five more followed in 1748. Its word count is approximately 970,000.

Estimates do vary. One library blog puts it at 984,870 words in one thick volume, while a publisher’s list gives a lower figure of 943,000. Richardson also revised the book several times, so different editions don’t match exactly. At 250 words per minute, a reader needs roughly 65 hours to finish it.

Poor Fellow My Country by Xavier Herbert

Xavier Herbert’s Australian epic is the heavyweight of the single volume category. It is cited as the longest single volume English language novel, at nearly 1500 pages and over 850,000 words. It first appeared in the 1970s and won the Miles Franklin Award.

The book follows life in northern Australia before and during the Second World War. Sources disagree on its exact length, with one library blog giving 852,000 words. At a steady pace, that’s close to 57 hours of reading, or more than a full working week.

Sironia, Texas and Miss MacIntosh, My Darling

Two American novels from the mid twentieth century also sit near the top of most lists. Madison Cooper’s Sironia, Texas is listed at 1,100,000 words in one ranking, though another source estimates 840,000. That gap shows how unreliable counts for out of print books can be.

Marguerite Young’s Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is listed at 700,000 words. It’s a dreamlike, experimental novel, which makes it slower going than the number suggests. Even at the lower estimates, you’re looking at 45 to 55 hours of reading for either book.

The Blah Story by Nigel Tomm

This one is a special case. The Blah Story, from 2007 to 2008, is a twenty three volume work by Nigel Tomm containing 11,338,105 words in 17,868 pages. It’s often called the longest novel in English by raw count.

Reading it is another matter. The bulk of the text is the word “blah” mixed with other words, so it works more as a conceptual project than a conventional story. Even so, at 250 words per minute the full text would take over 750 hours, about a month of nonstop reading.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

Vikram Seth’s 1993 novel is a favorite among readers who want something huge yet absorbing. It runs to 1,350 pages, just shy of 600,000 words. Another list gives 593,674 words.

The story follows family, politics and marriage plans in newly independent India. For most people it means about 40 hours of reading. Spread over a month, that’s roughly an hour and a half a day.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel is a famously heavy paperback. By the accepted modern count it’s over 560,000 words, though it was publicized at release as exceeding 650,000. A publisher’s list still repeats the older figure of 645,000.

That discrepancy is a good reminder to check how a count was made. Using the modern figure, the reading time is about 37 hours. Rand’s long speeches slow the pace for many readers, so it can take longer in practice.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel is the best known long book of its generation. One ranking gives 484,001 words, while another counts 543,709. The difference may come from how the extensive endnotes are treated.

Those endnotes force readers to flip back and forth, which adds time beyond what a word count predicts. On the lower estimate you’re looking at about 32 hours, and on the higher one closer to 36. Many readers allow a couple of months.

Stephen King’s The Stand and IT

Genre fiction fills much of the mid range of the longest novels. The unabridged second edition of The Stand exceeds 470,000 words and 1100 pages. IT, at just over 445,000 words, is shorter still.

Those figures translate to roughly 31 hours for The Stand and about 30 for IT. Both are modest next to Richardson or Herbert, yet they take weeks for most readers. They also show that bestsellers can match literary classics for length.

How Reading Time Is Estimated

Reading time is just word count divided by reading speed. I’ve used 250 words per minute, a common middle estimate for silent reading of fiction. Slow, careful readers may manage far less, and skimmers far more.

Audiobooks run differently, usually at a narration pace slower than silent reading. Dense prose, footnotes and unfamiliar dialects can also stretch the hours. For the longest novels, a daily habit of an hour or two matters more than any speed.

Final Thoughts

Clarissa at around 970,000 words remains the usual answer for the longest traditional novel in English, with Poor Fellow My Country as the longest single volume contender. Most readers can finish a 500,000 word novel in roughly 33 hours, and the very longest take 55 to 65.