History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 vs Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 2
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
2,732words between them — 11 min of it
History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 is longer — 258,723 words against 255,991 for Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 2, a difference of 2,732 words or about 11 min of extra reading. History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 is the harder read, at grade 8.8 against 8.7.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 | Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Williams, George Washington | Lyman, William Denison |
| Words | 258,723 | 255,991 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 17h 15m | 17h 04m |
| Unique words | 14,835 | 9,635 |
| Sentences | 15,875 | 15,677 |
| Average sentence length | 16.3 words | 16.3 words |
| Reading grade | 8.8 | 8.7 |
| Reading ease | 60.7 | 61.9 |
| Long words | 13.9% | 12.8% |
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 = |258,723 − 255,991| = 2,732 words 2,732 ÷ 250 wpm = 11 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 or Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 2?
History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 is longer — 258,723 words against 255,991 for Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 2, a difference of 2,732 words or about 11 min of extra reading. History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 is the harder read, at grade 8.8 against 8.7.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 21851 and no. 46808 — 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.
