Creative Evolution vs As I Remember
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
340words between them — 1 min of it
Creative Evolution is longer — 132,316 words against 131,976 for As I Remember, a difference of 340 words or about 1 min of extra reading. Creative Evolution is the harder read, at grade 14.4 against 8.1.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Creative Evolution | As I Remember | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Bergson, Henri | Gouverneur, Marian |
| Words | 132,316 | 131,976 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 8h 49m | 8h 48m |
| Unique words | 7,725 | 11,916 |
| Sentences | 4,642 | 8,882 |
| Average sentence length | 28.5 words | 14.9 words |
| Reading grade | 14.4 | 8.1 |
| Reading ease | 42.4 | 63.1 |
| Long words | 17% | 13.1% |
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 = |132,316 − 131,976| = 340 words 340 ÷ 250 wpm = 1 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Creative Evolution or As I Remember?
Creative Evolution is longer — 132,316 words against 131,976 for As I Remember, a difference of 340 words or about 1 min of extra reading. Creative Evolution is the harder read, at grade 14.4 against 8.1.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 26163 and no. 28384 — 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.
