A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 1 (of 2) vs Mr. Standfast
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
583words between them — 2 min of it
A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 1 (of 2) is longer — 128,864 words against 128,281 for Mr. Standfast, a difference of 583 words or about 2 min of extra reading. A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 1 (of 2) is the harder read, at grade 9.6 against 6.5.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 1 (of 2) | Mr. Standfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Perrot, Georges | Buchan, John |
| Words | 128,864 | 128,281 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 8h 35m | 8h 33m |
| Unique words | 9,604 | 11,457 |
| Sentences | 6,507 | 7,483 |
| Average sentence length | 19.8 words | 17.1 words |
| Reading grade | 9.6 | 6.5 |
| Reading ease | 61.3 | 79.1 |
| Long words | 12.4% | 6.6% |
Highlighted cells are the larger figure — except reading ease, where higher means easier.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions, same counting rule·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How this is worked out
- Both texts are counted the same way, from the same source, with Gutenberg's header and licence footer struck first.
- The gap is stated in words and then in time at 250 words a minute — the rate is printed because a duration without one cannot be checked.
- Difficulty is compared on Flesch–Kincaid grade, which reads sentence and word length only. It cannot see irony or dialect, so treat it as a measure of surface, not of effort.
gap = |128,864 − 128,281| = 583 words 583 ÷ 250 wpm = 2 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 1 (of 2) or Mr. Standfast?
A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 1 (of 2) is longer — 128,864 words against 128,281 for Mr. Standfast, a difference of 583 words or about 2 min of extra reading. A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 1 (of 2) is the harder read, at grade 9.6 against 6.5.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 28072 and no. 560 — and from no other source. Neither book’s text is set on this site.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·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.
