Leviathan vs Manual of Surgery Volume Second
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
1,231words between them — 5 min of it
Leviathan is longer — 212,267 words against 211,036 for Manual of Surgery Volume Second, a difference of 1,231 words or about 5 min of extra reading. Leviathan is the harder read, at grade 16.3 against 12.7.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Leviathan | Manual of Surgery Volume Second | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Hobbes, Thomas | Thomson, Alexis |
| Words | 212,267 | 211,036 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 14h 09m | 14h 04m |
| Unique words | 9,658 | 9,596 |
| Sentences | 5,576 | 9,131 |
| Average sentence length | 38.1 words | 23.1 words |
| Reading grade | 16.3 | 12.7 |
| Reading ease | 45.8 | 45.1 |
| Long words | 12% | 17.1% |
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 = |212,267 − 211,036| = 1,231 words 1,231 ÷ 250 wpm = 5 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Leviathan or Manual of Surgery Volume Second?
Leviathan is longer — 212,267 words against 211,036 for Manual of Surgery Volume Second, a difference of 1,231 words or about 5 min of extra reading. Leviathan is the harder read, at grade 16.3 against 12.7.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 3207 and no. 28428 — 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.
