Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2) vs Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
516words between them — 2 min of it
Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2) is longer — 170,824 words against 170,308 for Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men, a difference of 516 words or about 2 min of extra reading. Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2) is the harder read, at grade 11.8 against 9.8.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2) | Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Reumont, Alfred von | Various |
| Words | 170,824 | 170,308 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 11h 23m | 11h 21m |
| Unique words | 12,573 | 11,109 |
| Sentences | 7,475 | 9,371 |
| Average sentence length | 22.9 words | 18.2 words |
| Reading grade | 11.8 | 9.8 |
| Reading ease | 50.8 | 56.9 |
| Long words | 16% | 14.6% |
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 = |170,824 − 170,308| = 516 words 516 ÷ 250 wpm = 2 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2) or Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men?
Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2) is longer — 170,824 words against 170,308 for Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men, a difference of 516 words or about 2 min of extra reading. Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (vol. 1 of 2) is the harder read, at grade 11.8 against 9.8.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 50624 and no. 39634 — 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.
