Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1 vs Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation'
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
5,190words between them — 21 min of it
Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1 is longer — 179,009 words against 173,819 for Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation', a difference of 5,190 words or about 21 min of extra reading. Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1 is the harder read, at grade 10.6 against 8.7.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1 | Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Roscher, Wilhelm | Bradford, William |
| Words | 179,009 | 173,819 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 11h 56m | 11h 35m |
| Unique words | 14,576 | 12,074 |
| Sentences | 9,203 | 8,025 |
| Average sentence length | 19.5 words | 21.7 words |
| Reading grade | 10.6 | 8.7 |
| Reading ease | 53.4 | 71.5 |
| Long words | 15.3% | 7.2% |
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 = |179,009 − 173,819| = 5,190 words 5,190 ÷ 250 wpm = 21 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1 or Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation'?
Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1 is longer — 179,009 words against 173,819 for Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation', a difference of 5,190 words or about 21 min of extra reading. Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1 is the harder read, at grade 10.6 against 8.7.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 27698 and no. 24950 — 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.
