The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII vs The Heather-Moon
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
867words between them — 3 min of it
The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII is longer — 124,867 words against 124,000 for The Heather-Moon, a difference of 867 words or about 3 min of extra reading. The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII is the harder read, at grade 10.4 against 7.5.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII | The Heather-Moon | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Ovid | Williamson, C. N. (Charles Norris) |
| Words | 124,867 | 124,000 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 8h 19m | 8h 16m |
| Unique words | 10,620 | 9,701 |
| Sentences | 5,111 | 6,536 |
| Average sentence length | 24.4 words | 19 words |
| Reading grade | 10.4 | 7.5 |
| Reading ease | 64.3 | 75.4 |
| Long words | 8.3% | 6.6% |
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 = |124,867 − 124,000| = 867 words 867 ÷ 250 wpm = 3 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII or The Heather-Moon?
The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII is longer — 124,867 words against 124,000 for The Heather-Moon, a difference of 867 words or about 3 min of extra reading. The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII is the harder read, at grade 10.4 against 7.5.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 21765 and no. 19742 — 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.
