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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Word counts of famous books and series

57 titles, sorted longest first. Click any column heading to re-sort, or filter by genre. Series rows show the combined total of every book. Reading times assume the average adult silent reading speed of 250 words per minute.

The longest single novel here is In Search of Lost Time (1,267,069 words); the shortest is The Little Prince (16,535 words). Counts are widely-cited approximations (±2–3%); publishers rarely release official figures.

Title Author Genre Word count Est. reading time
The Wheel of Time (14 books) series Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson Fantasy 4,410,000 294h 0m
A Song of Ice and Fire (5 books, ongoing) series George R.R. Martin Fantasy 1,770,000 118h 0m
The Stormlight Archive (4 books, ongoing) series Brandon Sanderson Fantasy 1,650,000 110h 0m
In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust Literary 1,267,069 84h 29m
Harry Potter (7 books) series J.K. Rowling Fantasy 1,084,170 72h 17m
Clarissa Samuel Richardson Classic 969,000 64h 36m
Millennium / Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (3 books) series Stieg Larsson Thriller 632,000 42h 8m
Twilight (4 books) series Stephenie Meyer YA / Romance 587,287 39h 10m
War and Peace Leo Tolstoy Classic 587,287 39h 10m
Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand Literary 561,996 37h 28m
Les Misérables Victor Hugo Classic 545,925 36h 24m
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace Literary 543,709 36h 15m
The Lord of the Rings (3 vols) series J.R.R. Tolkien Fantasy 481,103 32h 5m
The Stand (uncut) Stephen King Horror 471,485 31h 26m
The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas Classic 464,234 30h 57m
It Stephen King Horror 445,134 29h 41m
Percy Jackson & the Olympians (5 books) series Rick Riordan Middle grade 442,500 29h 30m
Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell Classic 418,053 27h 53m
The Way of Kings Brandon Sanderson Fantasy 387,000 25h 48m
His Dark Materials (3 books) series Philip Pullman Fantasy 384,123 25h 37m
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy Classic 349,736 23h 19m
The Chronicles of Narnia (7 books) series C.S. Lewis Fantasy 345,535 23h 3m
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Classic 344,665 22h 59m
Middlemarch George Eliot Classic 316,059 21h 5m
The Hunger Games (3 books) series Suzanne Collins YA / Dystopia 300,942 20h 4m
A Game of Thrones George R.R. Martin Fantasy 298,000 19h 52m
Ulysses James Joyce Classic 265,222 17h 41m
The Name of the Wind Patrick Rothfuss Fantasy 259,000 17h 16m
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix J.K. Rowling Fantasy 257,045 17h 9m
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky Classic 211,591 14h 7m
Moby-Dick Herman Melville Classic 209,117 13h 57m
The Fellowship of the Ring J.R.R. Tolkien Fantasy 187,790 12h 32m
Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë Classic 183,858 12h 16m
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson Thriller 169,509 11h 19m
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck Literary 169,481 11h 18m
Dracula Bram Stoker Horror 160,000 10h 40m
The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown Thriller 138,978 9h 16m
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen Classic 122,685 8h 11m
Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë Classic 107,945 7h 12m
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee Literary 100,388 6h 42m
The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins YA / Dystopia 99,750 6h 39m
The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkien Fantasy 95,356 6h 22m
1984 George Orwell Dystopia 88,942 5h 56m
Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell Dystopia 88,942 5h 56m
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone J.K. Rowling Fantasy 76,944 5h 8m
Frankenstein Mary Shelley Classic 74,861 5h 0m
The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger Literary 73,404 4h 54m
The Fault in Our Stars John Green YA 67,203 4h 29m
Brave New World Aldous Huxley Dystopia 63,766 4h 16m
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald Classic 47,094 3h 9m
Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury Dystopia 46,118 3h 5m
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe C.S. Lewis Fantasy 38,421 2h 34m
Charlotte's Web E.B. White Children's 31,938 2h 8m
Animal Farm George Orwell Satire 29,966 2h 0m
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck Literary 29,160 1h 57m
The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway Literary 26,925 1h 48m
The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Children's 16,535 1h 7m

Hover a word count to see its source note. Have a correction or a book to add? Let us know.

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.