Mr. Standfast vs The Chauffeur and the Chaperon
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
129words between them — 1 min of it
Mr. Standfast is longer — 128,281 words against 128,152 for The Chauffeur and the Chaperon, a difference of 129 words or about 1 min of extra reading. The Chauffeur and the Chaperon is the harder read, at grade 9 against 6.5.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Mr. Standfast | The Chauffeur and the Chaperon | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Buchan, John | Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris) |
| Words | 128,281 | 128,152 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 8h 33m | 8h 33m |
| Unique words | 11,457 | 10,606 |
| Sentences | 7,483 | 5,638 |
| Average sentence length | 17.1 words | 22.7 words |
| Reading grade | 6.5 | 9 |
| Reading ease | 79.1 | 71.3 |
| Long words | 6.6% | 6.9% |
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 = |128,281 − 128,152| = 129 words 129 ÷ 250 wpm = 1 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Mr. Standfast or The Chauffeur and the Chaperon?
Mr. Standfast is longer — 128,281 words against 128,152 for The Chauffeur and the Chaperon, a difference of 129 words or about 1 min of extra reading. The Chauffeur and the Chaperon is the harder read, at grade 9 against 6.5.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 560 and no. 21529 — 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.
