In Praise of Folly
2h 59mof reading at 250 wpm
In Praise of Folly by Erasmus, Desiderius runs to 44,778 words — about 2h 59m of reading at an average adult pace of 250 words per minute, or roughly 163 pages at typical paperback density.
Extent 44,778 words · 7,055 distinct forms · 906 sentences · F–K grade 20.7
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·computed from the full text·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Above the rule one mark per reading hour at 250 wpmBelow a folio every 50 pages at 275 words to the page
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·counted from the text, not a publisher's page count·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How this is worked out
- The Project Gutenberg plain-text edition is fetched, then Gutenberg's header and licence footer are struck at the
*** START ***and*** END ***markers. Nothing is taken from a publisher's listing. - What remains is counted as that edition sets it: 44,778 words, 906 sentences, syllables by vowel-group heuristic.
- Words are divided by a stated reading rate. This page's headline uses 250 words a minute; a duration printed without its rate cannot be checked, so the rate travels with every figure and the table below runs 150–450 wpm.
- Minutes are rounded once, to the nearest minute, and set as h:mm. Nothing on this page is rounded twice.
- The page extent is a courtesy conversion at 275 words to the page — a typesetting figure, not a property of the book.
words ÷ rate = minutes 44,778 ÷ 250 wpm = 179 min → 2h 59m words ÷ density = extent 44,778 ÷ 275 w/pp = 163 pages
How long it takes to read, by reading speed
Most adults read prose at 200–300 words per minute. Reading speed varies far more between people than most reading-time estimates admit, so here is the whole range.
| Reading speed | Total time | At 30 min/day | At 1 hour/day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slow / careful (150 wpm) | 4h 59m | 10 days | 5 days |
| Below average (200 wpm) | 3h 44m | 8 days | 4 days |
| Average adult (250 wpm) | 2h 59m | 6 days | 3 days |
| Fast (300 wpm) | 2h 29m | 5 days | 3 days |
| Very fast (450 wpm) | 1h 40m | 4 days | 2 days |
The full measurement
| Total words | 44,778 |
|---|---|
| Unique words | 7,055 |
| Lexical diversity | 15.76% unique words as a share of total |
| Sentences | 906 |
| Average sentence length | 49.4 words |
| Average syllables per word | 1.44 |
| Long words (3+ syllables) | 10.7% |
| Flesch–Kincaid grade | 20.7 |
| Flesch reading ease | 34.7 higher is easier; 60–70 is plain English |
| Gunning fog index | 24 |
| Coleman–Liau index | 10.3 |
Computed from the Project Gutenberg plain-text edition with the Gutenberg header and licence footer removed. See how and why your count may differ.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·ebook no. 30201·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Reading it in evenings
The same 44,778 words, divided by the habit rather than by the hour — and then a rate of your own, if 250 wpm is not yours.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·reading rate stated: 250 wpm·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Average adult prose speed is 200–300 wpm. Not sure? Time yourself on one page.
Is it a hard read?
Four different readability formulas agree it is very difficult — postgraduate level: Flesch–Kincaid puts it at grade 20.7, Gunning fog at 24, Coleman–Liau at 10.3. The Flesch reading-ease score of 34.7 is heavy going by modern standards.
The mechanics behind that: sentences average 49.4 words (modern prose tends to run 15–20), and 10.7% of words are three syllables or longer. Its vocabulary is unusually varied — 7,055 distinct words, or 15.76% of the total.
A caution about all of this: readability formulas measure sentence and word length, nothing more. They cannot see irony, dialect, allusion or an unreliable narrator. A book can score as "easy" and still be genuinely difficult to follow.
The second question
What people ask once the duration is on the table.
How many words are in In Praise of Folly?
44,778 words in the Project Gutenberg edition, made up of 7,055 distinct words across 906 sentences. That is longer than 16% of the books measured on this site.
How long does it take to read In Praise of Folly?
About 2h 59m at an average adult reading speed of 250 words per minute. A slower reader at 150 wpm would need roughly 4h 59m; a fast reader at 400 wpm about 1h 52m.
What reading level is In Praise of Folly?
It scores 20.7 on the Flesch–Kincaid grade scale — very difficult — postgraduate level. Its Flesch reading-ease score is 34.7, sentences average 49.4 words, and 10.7% of its words run to three syllables or more.
How many pages is In Praise of Folly?
Page counts depend entirely on the edition — font, trim size and margins all change them, which is why this site measures words instead. At a typical trade-paperback density of about 275 words per page, 44,778 words works out to roughly 163 pages.
Books of the same extent
Nearest neighbours by word count — the same evening, a different book.
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Measured from the Project Gutenberg plain-text edition, ebook no. 30201, with Gutenberg’s header and licence footer struck before counting. 44,778 words, 906 sentences, 7,055 distinct forms. No text of the work is set anywhere on this site — only measurements of it.
The extent of 163 pages is a conversion at 275 words to the page, not this edition’s foliation: a page count belongs to a typesetting, never to a book. Reading time assumes 250 words a minute and is stated with its rate everywhere it appears.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg ebook no. 30201·US public domain·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Word counts and reading levels are computed from a specific public-domain edition and will differ from other editions and from other counting methods — see the method page.
