The Odyssey vs Mr. Standfast
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
1,021words between them — 4 min of it
The Odyssey is longer — 129,302 words against 128,281 for Mr. Standfast, a difference of 1,021 words or about 4 min of extra reading. The Odyssey is the harder read, at grade 13.4 against 6.5.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Odyssey | Mr. Standfast | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Homer | Buchan, John |
| Words | 129,302 | 128,281 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 8h 37m | 8h 33m |
| Unique words | 7,438 | 11,457 |
| Sentences | 3,610 | 7,483 |
| Average sentence length | 35.8 words | 17.1 words |
| Reading grade | 13.4 | 6.5 |
| Reading ease | 62.4 | 79.1 |
| Long words | 5.3% | 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 = |129,302 − 128,281| = 1,021 words 1,021 ÷ 250 wpm = 4 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Odyssey or Mr. Standfast?
The Odyssey is longer — 129,302 words against 128,281 for Mr. Standfast, a difference of 1,021 words or about 4 min of extra reading. The Odyssey is the harder read, at grade 13.4 against 6.5.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 1727 and no. 560 — 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.
