The Chauffeur and the Chaperon vs Poems and Songs of Robert Burns
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
72words between them — 0 min of it
The Chauffeur and the Chaperon is longer — 128,152 words against 128,080 for Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, a difference of 72 words or about 0 min of extra reading. The Chauffeur and the Chaperon is the harder read, at grade 9 against 6.7.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Chauffeur and the Chaperon | Poems and Songs of Robert Burns | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris) | Burns, Robert |
| Words | 128,152 | 128,080 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 8h 33m | 8h 32m |
| Unique words | 10,606 | 15,189 |
| Sentences | 5,638 | 7,151 |
| Average sentence length | 22.7 words | 17.9 words |
| Reading grade | 9 | 6.7 |
| Reading ease | 71.3 | 79.2 |
| Long words | 6.9% | 4.5% |
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 = |128,152 − 128,080| = 72 words 72 ÷ 250 wpm = 0 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Chauffeur and the Chaperon or Poems and Songs of Robert Burns?
The Chauffeur and the Chaperon is longer — 128,152 words against 128,080 for Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, a difference of 72 words or about 0 min of extra reading. The Chauffeur and the Chaperon is the harder read, at grade 9 against 6.7.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 21529 and no. 1279 — 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.
