The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) vs Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
2,435words between them — 10 min of it
The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) is longer — 183,810 words against 181,375 for Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, a difference of 2,435 words or about 10 min of extra reading. The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) is the harder read, at grade 13.8 against 12.5.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) | Cicero's Tusculan Disputations | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Díaz del Castillo, Bernal | Cicero, Marcus Tullius |
| Words | 183,810 | 181,375 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 12h 15m | 12h 06m |
| Unique words | 8,768 | 11,884 |
| Sentences | 5,878 | 6,350 |
| Average sentence length | 31.3 words | 28.6 words |
| Reading grade | 13.8 | 12.5 |
| Reading ease | 52 | 56.1 |
| Long words | 11.2% | 11% |
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 = |183,810 − 181,375| = 2,435 words 2,435 ÷ 250 wpm = 10 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) or Cicero's Tusculan Disputations?
The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) is longer — 183,810 words against 181,375 for Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, a difference of 2,435 words or about 10 min of extra reading. The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) is the harder read, at grade 13.8 against 12.5.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 32474 and no. 14988 — 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.
