Modern English biography, volume 1 (of 4), A-H vs Main currents in American thought
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
20,775words between them — 1h 23m of it
Modern English biography, volume 1 (of 4), A-H is longer — 561,352 words against 540,577 for Main currents in American thought, a difference of 20,775 words or about 1h 23m of extra reading. Main currents in American thought is the harder read, at grade 12.4 against 5.3.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Modern English biography, volume 1 (of 4), A-H | Main currents in American thought | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Boase, Frederic | Parrington, Vernon Louis |
| Words | 561,352 | 540,577 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 37h 25m | 36h 02m |
| Unique words | 28,798 | 27,385 |
| Sentences | 94,407 | 23,526 |
| Average sentence length | 5.9 words | 23 words |
| Reading grade | 5.3 | 12.4 |
| Reading ease | 67.3 | 47 |
| Long words | 13.9% | 16.6% |
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 = |561,352 − 540,577| = 20,775 words 20,775 ÷ 250 wpm = 1h 23m of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Modern English biography, volume 1 (of 4), A-H or Main currents in American thought?
Modern English biography, volume 1 (of 4), A-H is longer — 561,352 words against 540,577 for Main currents in American thought, a difference of 20,775 words or about 1h 23m of extra reading. Main currents in American thought is the harder read, at grade 12.4 against 5.3.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 55059 and no. 78025 — 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.
