On the Cross vs The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
722words between them — 3 min of it
On the Cross is longer — 168,011 words against 167,289 for The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn, a difference of 722 words or about 3 min of extra reading. The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn is the harder read, at grade 10 against 8.9.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| On the Cross | The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Hillern, Wilhelmine von | Johnston, Henry Phelps |
| Words | 168,011 | 167,289 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 11h 12m | 11h 09m |
| Unique words | 12,476 | 10,349 |
| Sentences | 7,982 | 7,975 |
| Average sentence length | 21 words | 21 words |
| Reading grade | 8.9 | 10 |
| Reading ease | 68.4 | 60.9 |
| Long words | 8.4% | 11.6% |
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 = |168,011 − 167,289| = 722 words 722 ÷ 250 wpm = 3 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, On the Cross or The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn?
On the Cross is longer — 168,011 words against 167,289 for The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn, a difference of 722 words or about 3 min of extra reading. The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn is the harder read, at grade 10 against 8.9.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 36725 and no. 21990 — 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.
