The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, 1837-1843 vs Moby Dick
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
1,934words between them — 8 min of it
The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, 1837-1843 is longer — 215,314 words against 213,380 for Moby Dick, a difference of 1,934 words or about 8 min of extra reading. The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, 1837-1843 is the harder read, at grade 12.9 against 10.6.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, 1837-1843 | Moby Dick | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Victoria, Queen of Great Britain | Melville, Herman |
| Words | 215,314 | 213,380 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 14h 21m | 14h 14m |
| Unique words | 12,087 | 18,600 |
| Sentences | 7,611 | 8,604 |
| Average sentence length | 28.3 words | 24.8 words |
| Reading grade | 12.9 | 10.6 |
| Reading ease | 53.1 | 63.1 |
| Long words | 11.9% | 8.9% |
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 = |215,314 − 213,380| = 1,934 words 1,934 ÷ 250 wpm = 8 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, 1837-1843 or Moby Dick?
The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, 1837-1843 is longer — 215,314 words against 213,380 for Moby Dick, a difference of 1,934 words or about 8 min of extra reading. The letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, 1837-1843 is the harder read, at grade 12.9 against 10.6.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 20023 and no. 2489 — 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.
