Complete Prose Works vs Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 (of 4)
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
302words between them — 1 min of it
Complete Prose Works is longer — 233,957 words against 233,655 for Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 (of 4), a difference of 302 words or about 1 min of extra reading. Complete Prose Works is the harder read, at grade 12.9 against 12.6.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Complete Prose Works | Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 (of 4) | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Whitman, Walt | Plutarch |
| Words | 233,957 | 233,655 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 15h 36m | 15h 35m |
| Unique words | 22,864 | 13,196 |
| Sentences | 8,510 | 8,109 |
| Average sentence length | 27.5 words | 28.8 words |
| Reading grade | 12.9 | 12.6 |
| Reading ease | 51.3 | 55.9 |
| Long words | 12.9% | 10.3% |
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 = |233,957 − 233,655| = 302 words 302 ÷ 250 wpm = 1 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Complete Prose Works or Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 (of 4)?
Complete Prose Works is longer — 233,957 words against 233,655 for Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 (of 4), a difference of 302 words or about 1 min of extra reading. Complete Prose Works is the harder read, at grade 12.9 against 12.6.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 8813 and no. 14140 — 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.
