The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6) vs The City of God, Volume I
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
116words between them — 0 min of it
The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6) is longer — 230,101 words against 229,985 for The City of God, Volume I, a difference of 116 words or about 0 min of extra reading. The City of God, Volume I is the harder read, at grade 13.6 against 7.4.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6) | The City of God, Volume I | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Pliny, the Elder | Augustine, of Hippo, Saint |
| Words | 230,101 | 229,985 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 15h 20m | 15h 20m |
| Unique words | 13,910 | 11,979 |
| Sentences | 13,905 | 7,114 |
| Average sentence length | 16.5 words | 32.3 words |
| Reading grade | 7.4 | 13.6 |
| Reading ease | 71.3 | 54.8 |
| Long words | 9.7% | 10.1% |
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 = |230,101 − 229,985| = 116 words 116 ÷ 250 wpm = 0 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6) or The City of God, Volume I?
The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6) is longer — 230,101 words against 229,985 for The City of God, Volume I, a difference of 116 words or about 0 min of extra reading. The City of God, Volume I is the harder read, at grade 13.6 against 7.4.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 59131 and no. 45304 — 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.
