Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 vs Tancred
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
3words between them — 0 min of it
Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 is longer — 162,941 words against 162,938 for Tancred, a difference of 3 words or about 0 min of extra reading. Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 is the harder read, at grade 11.7 against 11.3.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 | Tancred | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Makins, George Henry | Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield |
| Words | 162,941 | 162,938 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 10h 52m | 10h 52m |
| Unique words | 7,443 | 11,972 |
| Sentences | 7,471 | 6,375 |
| Average sentence length | 21.8 words | 25.6 words |
| Reading grade | 11.7 | 11.3 |
| Reading ease | 50.4 | 59.8 |
| Long words | 15.6% | 10.6% |
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 = |162,941 − 162,938| = 3 words 3 ÷ 250 wpm = 0 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 or Tancred?
Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 is longer — 162,941 words against 162,938 for Tancred, a difference of 3 words or about 0 min of extra reading. Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 is the harder read, at grade 11.7 against 11.3.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 21280 and no. 20004 — 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.
