Word Counts of Famous Books and Series

How many words are in Harry Potter, Twilight, Sherlock Holmes, and more — the complete word count of every famous novel and series we've measured.

Book word counts are a strangely useful number. They tell you how big a reading commitment a series is, they let you compare your manuscript against published comparables, and they help readers decide whether they have time to start a 4,000-page epic before their flight. We measured every series we could and present the data below — sortable, sourced, and updated as new books arrive.

Word count brackets for novels

CategoryWord countExamples
Flash fictionunder 1,500Hemingway's "Baby shoes"
Short story1,500–7,500Most New Yorker fiction
Novelette7,500–17,500"The Lottery" — Shirley Jackson
Novella17,500–40,000"The Old Man and the Sea"
Novel (short)50,000–80,000"The Great Gatsby" (47k)
Novel (standard)80,000–100,000"To Kill a Mockingbird" (100k)
Novel (long)100,000–150,000"Crime and Punishment" (211k)
Epic150,000+"War and Peace" (587k)

For aspiring novelists: agents and editors expect debut novels to land between 80,000 and 100,000 words. Outside that range, your query will get a harder look — too short reads as undercooked, too long as unedited.

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Why word count matters for readers and writers

For readers, word count is the only honest measure of how long a book is. Page counts vary by font and trim size; word count is invariant. A 500-page paperback can hold anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 words depending on layout.

For writers, word count is the contract with the publisher. Adult literary fiction targets 80–100k. YA targets 50–80k. Middle grade targets 30–50k. Picture books target under 1,000.

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Frequently asked questions

How many words are in the Harry Potter series?
The seven main books total approximately 1,084,000 words. The longest single book is The Order of the Phoenix at ~257,000 words; the shortest is The Philosopher's Stone at ~77,000.
How many words is a typical novel?
Most adult novels run 80,000–100,000 words. Genre fiction varies: romance averages 70–90k, fantasy and sci-fi 90–130k, thrillers 70–90k.
What's the longest novel ever published?
Excluding serialized works, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time at ~1.27 million words is widely cited as the longest single novel. Among English-language novels, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1748) at ~969,000 words is often cited.
How long does it take to read a 100,000-word novel?
About 6 hours 40 minutes at the average silent reading speed of 250 WPM. Slower readers (150 WPM) take ~11 hours; faster readers (350 WPM) finish in under 5.