The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 vs Modern English biography, volume 2 (of 4), I-Q
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
51,048words between them — 3h 24m of it
The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 is longer — 650,247 words against 599,199 for Modern English biography, volume 2 (of 4), I-Q, a difference of 51,048 words or about 3h 24m of extra reading. The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 is the harder read, at grade 10 against 5.8.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 | Modern English biography, volume 2 (of 4), I-Q | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Lewis, Meriwether | Boase, Frederic |
| Words | 650,247 | 599,199 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 43h 21m | 39h 57m |
| Unique words | 20,509 | 32,207 |
| Sentences | 26,085 | 87,958 |
| Average sentence length | 24.9 words | 6.8 words |
| Reading grade | 10 | 5.8 |
| Reading ease | 67.8 | 65.7 |
| Long words | 6.8% | 14.1% |
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 = |650,247 − 599,199| = 51,048 words 51,048 ÷ 250 wpm = 3h 24m of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 or Modern English biography, volume 2 (of 4), I-Q?
The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 is longer — 650,247 words against 599,199 for Modern English biography, volume 2 (of 4), I-Q, a difference of 51,048 words or about 3h 24m of extra reading. The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 is the harder read, at grade 10 against 5.8.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 8419 and no. 71046 — 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.
