Boston vs Robert Elsmere
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
5,028words between them — 20 min of it
Boston is longer — 291,658 words against 286,630 for Robert Elsmere, a difference of 5,028 words or about 20 min of extra reading. Boston is the harder read, at grade 11 against 8.8.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Boston | Robert Elsmere | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Sinclair, Upton | Ward, Humphry, Mrs. |
| Words | 291,658 | 286,630 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 19h 27m | 19h 07m |
| Unique words | 17,612 | 18,118 |
| Sentences | 11,557 | 14,334 |
| Average sentence length | 25.2 words | 20 words |
| Reading grade | 11 | 8.8 |
| Reading ease | 61.2 | 67.6 |
| Long words | 10% | 9.3% |
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 = |291,658 − 286,630| = 5,028 words 5,028 ÷ 250 wpm = 20 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Boston or Robert Elsmere?
Boston is longer — 291,658 words against 286,630 for Robert Elsmere, a difference of 5,028 words or about 20 min of extra reading. Boston is the harder read, at grade 11 against 8.8.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 78039 and no. 24898 — 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.
