The Iliad vs The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
267words between them — 1 min of it
The Iliad is longer — 188,943 words against 188,676 for The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman, a difference of 267 words or about 1 min of extra reading. The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman is the harder read, at grade 19.9 against 10.4.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Iliad | The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Homer | Sterne, Laurence |
| Words | 188,943 | 188,676 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 12h 36m | 12h 35m |
| Unique words | 13,144 | 14,561 |
| Sentences | 7,279 | 3,813 |
| Average sentence length | 26 words | 49.5 words |
| Reading grade | 10.4 | 19.9 |
| Reading ease | 66.9 | 40.3 |
| Long words | 6.4% | 8.2% |
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 = |188,943 − 188,676| = 267 words 267 ÷ 250 wpm = 1 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Iliad or The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman?
The Iliad is longer — 188,943 words against 188,676 for The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman, a difference of 267 words or about 1 min of extra reading. The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman is the harder read, at grade 19.9 against 10.4.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 6130 and no. 1079 — 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.
