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How long and how hard: reading time and reading level of the classics people search for

How many hours does a classic take to read, and how hard is its language? Numbers for the classics people search for most, measured on our modern-English editions.

Updated · License: CC BY 4.0

The short answer

  • Typical length: half of these classics take less than 3 h 39 min to read (52,024 words at 238 words a minute).
  • Wide spread: one in ten takes less than 24 min, one in ten more than 10 h 24 min.
  • Levels: 57% medium, 37% challenging, 6% easy; the typical reading grade is 8.0.
  • Free to use: the data set is CC BY 4.0; credit the Library of Alexandria Press (the name and a plain-text address are enough).

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Reading time and level of the classics people search for (CSV)One row per classic: rank, title, author, first published, genre, words, reading minutes, read-aloud minutes, reading grade, level, a note where one applies, and the edition address.CSV · 158 KB · UTF-8

The 100 most-searched, one by one

These are the first 100 classics in the file, in the order people search for them, without the 6 titles that carry a note in the file (the searches are mostly devotional, or the name is also a common word, a brand or another work). The numbers are the file's ranks. Every title opens its edition page.

Title Author Length Reading time Level
1. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 113,302 words 7 h 56 min Medium (grade 7.1)
2. The Odyssey Homer 114,534 words 8 h 1 min Medium (grade 8.6)
3. Macbeth William Shakespeare 18,467 words 1 h 18 min Medium (grade 3.7)
4. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark William Shakespeare 30,768 words 2 h 9 min Medium (grade 3.6)
5. Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 25,622 words 1 h 48 min Medium (grade 3.3)
7. Frankenstein Mary Shelley 69,750 words 4 h 53 min Medium (grade 8.9)
8. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 46,674 words 3 h 16 min Medium (grade 7.2)
9. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 117,590 words 8 h 14 min Medium (grade 8.5)
10. Persuasion Jane Austen 78,660 words 5 h 31 min Medium (grade 9.0)
11. Peter Pan J. M. Barrie 44,756 words 3 h 8 min Easy (grade 5.9)
12. Othello, the Moor of Venice William Shakespeare 27,665 words 1 h 56 min Medium (grade 3.8)
13. Dracula Bram Stoker 150,485 words 10 h 32 min Challenging (grade 7.0)
14. Beauty and the Beast Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont 4,922 words 21 min Medium (grade 7.7)
15. A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 27,091 words 1 h 54 min Medium (grade 6.7)
16. Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky 190,847 words 13 h 22 min Challenging (grade 6.6)
17. Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem Translated by J. Lesslie Hall 38,775 words 2 h 43 min Medium (grade 4.9)
18. Julius Caesar William Shakespeare 20,662 words 1 h 27 min Medium (grade 3.8)
19. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography Charlotte Brontë 177,940 words 12 h 28 min Challenging (grade 7.0)
20. 1 Enoch Attributed to Enoch 34,483 words 2 h 25 min Medium (grade 8.0)
21. Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy Louisa May Alcott 180,722 words 12 h 39 min Challenging (grade 8.3)
22. Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will William Shakespeare 20,987 words 1 h 28 min Medium (grade 3.2)
23. The Phantom of the Opera Gaston Leroux 79,107 words 5 h 32 min Medium (grade 5.8)
24. The Iliad Homer 136,260 words 9 h 33 min Medium (grade 8.8)
25. Emma Jane Austen 149,933 words 10 h 30 min Medium (grade 7.3)
26. The Tragedy of King Lear William Shakespeare 27,975 words 1 h 58 min Medium (grade 3.2)
27. Meditations Marcus Aurelius 55,441 words 3 h 53 min Medium (grade 8.5)
28. Much Ado About Nothing William Shakespeare 21,879 words 1 h 32 min Medium (grade 3.5)
30. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas, Auguste Maquet 423,333 words 29 h 39 min Challenging (grade 7.4)
31. The Art of War Sun Tzu 48,759 words 3 h 25 min Medium (grade 8.9)
32. Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 146,057 words 10 h 14 min Medium (grade 7.1)
33. Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 64,105 words 4 h 29 min Medium (grade 6.8)
34. Great Expectations Charles Dickens 172,641 words 12 h 5 min Challenging (grade 7.7)
35. Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 367,688 words 25 h 45 min Challenging (grade 9.7)
36. Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen 110,094 words 7 h 43 min Medium (grade 8.9)
37. A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare 17,067 words 1 h 12 min Medium (grade 4.0)
38. Daisy Susan Warner 113,150 words 7 h 55 min Medium (grade 5.9)
39. As You Like It William Shakespeare 22,462 words 1 h 34 min Medium (grade 3.7)
40. Paradise Lost John Milton 83,995 words 5 h 53 min Challenging (grade 13.8)
42. The Playboy of the Western World J. M. Synge 19,019 words 1 h 20 min Medium (grade 4.1)
43. The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People Oscar Wilde 19,252 words 1 h 21 min Medium (grade 4.4)
44. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 104,962 words 7 h 21 min Medium (grade 6.2)
46. The Book of Mormon Joseph Smith Jr., Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 228,390 words 16 h Challenging (grade 8.6)
47. War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 529,432 words 37 h 5 min Challenging (grade 8.4)
48. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 77,040 words 5 h 24 min Challenging (grade 10.8)
49. Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 36,355 words 2 h 33 min Medium (grade 7.4)
50. Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 97,923 words 6 h 51 min Medium (grade 6.6)
51. Les Misérables Victor Hugo 508,271 words 35 h 36 min Challenging (grade 7.0)
53. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 73,370 words 5 h 8 min Medium (grade 6.0)
54. The Call of the Wild Jack London 30,103 words 2 h 6 min Medium (grade 7.5)
55. Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 19,526 words 1 h 22 min Challenging (grade 9.8)
56. A Doll's House: A Play Henrik Ibsen 24,506 words 1 h 43 min Medium (grade 2.7)
57. The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe 6,227 words 26 min Challenging (grade 11.4)
58. A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 126,775 words 8 h 53 min Medium (grade 7.6)
59. Grapes of Wrath Boyd Cable 53,186 words 3 h 43 min Medium (grade 9.4)
60. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 325,024 words 22 h 46 min Challenging (grade 8.0)
61. The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 54,713 words 3 h 50 min Medium (grade 8.1)
62. Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 62,049 words 4 h 21 min Medium (grade 7.7)
63. The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett 75,868 words 5 h 19 min Medium (grade 5.8)
64. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevsky 329,586 words 23 h 5 min Challenging (grade 7.1)
65. Hyperion Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 66,921 words 4 h 41 min Medium (grade 7.9)
66. Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoyevsky 40,965 words 2 h 52 min Medium (grade 7.5)
67. The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling 47,795 words 3 h 21 min Easy (grade 6.4)
68. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 24,975 words 1 h 45 min Medium (grade 6.7)
69. David Copperfield Charles Dickens 333,413 words 23 h 21 min Challenging (grade 7.2)
70. Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 171,017 words 11 h 59 min Challenging (grade 7.2)
71. The Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare 21,729 words 1 h 31 min Medium (grade 4.1)
72. Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau 110,076 words 7 h 43 min Challenging (grade 10.1)
73. The King in Yellow Robert W. Chambers 68,928 words 4 h 50 min Medium (grade 6.8)
74. Black Beauty Anna Sewell 55,742 words 3 h 54 min Easy (grade 6.4)
76. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Jessie L. Weston 19,608 words 1 h 22 min Medium (grade 7.9)
77. The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels 10,473 words 44 min Challenging (grade 13.5)
78. The Aeneid Virgil 108,867 words 7 h 37 min Medium (grade 4.0)
79. Middlemarch George Eliot 297,875 words 20 h 52 min Challenging (grade 8.7)
80. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irving 11,155 words 47 min Challenging (grade 11.2)
81. Work: A Story of Experience Louisa May Alcott 114,821 words 8 h 2 min Medium (grade 8.9)
82. Brothers Horace Annesley Vachell 110,831 words 7 h 46 min Medium (grade 6.4)
83. Pollyanna Eleanor H. Porter 53,273 words 3 h 44 min Easy (grade 5.8)
84. The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 53,764 words 3 h 46 min Medium (grade 6.8)
85. Journey to the West Wu Cheng'en 593,100 words 41 h 32 min Challenging (grade 7.2)
86. Hedda Gabler Henrik Ibsen 24,986 words 1 h 45 min Medium (grade 2.7)
87. Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll 28,452 words 2 h Easy (grade 5.8)
88. Mansfield Park Jane Austen 150,055 words 10 h 30 min Challenging (grade 8.7)
89. The Turn of the Screw Henry James 39,716 words 2 h 47 min Medium (grade 7.9)
90. Rip Van Winkle Washington Irving 6,950 words 29 min Medium (grade 8.8)
91. Candide Voltaire 32,561 words 2 h 17 min Medium (grade 8.2)
92. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 109,251 words 7 h 39 min Medium (grade 7.6)
93. We Yevgeny Zamyatin 59,970 words 4 h 12 min Easy (grade 6.3)
94. Bushido, the Soul of Japan Inazo Nitobe 30,999 words 2 h 10 min Challenging (grade 11.9)
95. Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche 58,661 words 4 h 6 min Challenging (grade 13.1)
96. Northanger Abbey Jane Austen 71,956 words 5 h 2 min Medium (grade 8.8)
97. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded Samuel Richardson 209,814 words 14 h 42 min Challenging (grade 7.1)
98. Aesop's Fables; A New Translation Aesop 33,246 words 2 h 20 min Medium (grade 7.8)
99. The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 131,914 words 9 h 14 min Challenging (grade 10.1)
100. Mist (Nivola) Miguel de Unamuno 57,571 words 4 h 2 min Easy (grade 5.7)
101. Norse Mythology Rasmus Björn Anderson 108,350 words 7 h 35 min Medium (grade 6.0)
102. The Idiot Fyodor Dostoyevsky 223,487 words 15 h 39 min Challenging (grade 7.4)
103. Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street Herman Melville 13,596 words 57 min Medium (grade 8.4)
104. Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy 129,295 words 9 h 3 min Medium (grade 7.7)
105. Arms and the Man Bernard Shaw 22,288 words 1 h 34 min Medium (grade 4.2)
106. Antony and Cleopatra William Shakespeare 27,148 words 1 h 54 min Medium (grade 3.9)

What the levels mean

Level Titles What it means
Easy 56 (6%) Reading grade 6.5 or lower, no more than 60,000 words, and not verse or a play.
Medium 568 (57%) Everything between the two.
Challenging 369 (37%) Reading grade 9.5 or higher, or 150,000 words or more.

Among the 100 most-searched, 64 are medium, 29 challenging and 7 easy. Reading level says how short the sentences and words are. Plot, ideas and old references can make a book harder or easier than its level.

How we measured

  • The books. The text of our modern-English editions, measured on the editions of 21 and 24 October 2026. The house introduction is left out, so the numbers describe the book itself. Plays and verse are counted as running text.
  • Words and time. Words are counted in the edition's text. Reading time is the words divided by 238 words a minute, the average adult speed for silent reading of non-fiction in a 2019 review of 190 studies (Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language). The read-aloud time in the file divides by 150 words a minute. Both are averages: a fast reader is quicker.
  • Reading grade. The Flesch-Kincaid grade level: 0.39 × words per sentence + 11.8 × syllables per word − 15.59. A grade of 8 means a typical United States eighth-grader can read it. The formula reads sentence and word length only, so plays and verse, which are made of short lines, score lower than they read.
  • Which classics. The classics people search for most in English: Google Ads search counts for the United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada and Australia (12-month average to September 2026, measured on 24 October 2026) for searches to read, hear, summarize, download or study a title. The classics at the end of the list go by searches for the bare title, where the other phrasings had none. A search count says what people look for, not how many people read a book.
  • Changes. A revised edition can change its numbers by a few percent. The file carries its date, and a new version follows when the editions change.

Questions

How long does it take to read a classic?

It depends on the book. Half of the classics in this file take less than 3 h 39 min; the shortest tales take minutes and the longest works, such as complete scriptures, take days. For a quick estimate divide a book's words by 238.

How hard is a classic to read?

In our editions 57% of these classics are medium, 37% challenging and 6% easy. The level is about sentence and word length only.

Can I use this data?

Yes. It is free to use, share and adapt under CC BY 4.0, also in articles, lessons and apps. Credit the Library of Alexandria Press (the name and a plain-text address are enough).

Why are plays and poems so low on the scale?

The grade formula counts words per sentence. A play is made of short lines, so it scores low even when the language is rich. Read the level next to the length and the genre.

Cite this

Library of Alexandria Press (2026). How long and how hard: reading time and reading level of the classics people search for [Data set]. Version 2026-10-27. https://libraryofalexandria.com/pages/classics-reading-time-and-level. CC BY 4.0.

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