Robert Elsmere vs The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2)
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
3,307words between them — 13 min of it
Robert Elsmere is longer — 286,630 words against 283,323 for The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2), a difference of 3,307 words or about 13 min of extra reading. The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) is the harder read, at grade 8.9 against 8.8.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Robert Elsmere | The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Ward, Humphry, Mrs. | Gillespie, George |
| Words | 286,630 | 283,323 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 19h 07m | 18h 53m |
| Unique words | 18,118 | 15,850 |
| Sentences | 14,334 | 15,794 |
| Average sentence length | 20 words | 17.9 words |
| Reading grade | 8.8 | 8.9 |
| Reading ease | 67.6 | 62.9 |
| Long words | 9.3% | 12.8% |
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 = |286,630 − 283,323| = 3,307 words 3,307 ÷ 250 wpm = 13 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Robert Elsmere or The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2)?
Robert Elsmere is longer — 286,630 words against 283,323 for The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2), a difference of 3,307 words or about 13 min of extra reading. The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) is the harder read, at grade 8.9 against 8.8.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 24898 and no. 26849 — 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.
