The String of Pearls vs Don Quixote
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
8,033words between them — 32 min of it
The String of Pearls is longer — 437,085 words against 429,052 for Don Quixote, a difference of 8,033 words or about 32 min of extra reading. Don Quixote is the harder read, at grade 26.4 against 8.9.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The String of Pearls | Don Quixote | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Prest, Thomas Peckett | Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de |
| Words | 437,085 | 429,052 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 29h 08m | 28h 36m |
| Unique words | 16,135 | 16,332 |
| Sentences | 18,944 | 6,345 |
| Average sentence length | 23.1 words | 67.6 words |
| Reading grade | 8.9 | 26.4 |
| Reading ease | 72.5 | 26 |
| Long words | 6.7% | 6.9% |
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 = |437,085 − 429,052| = 8,033 words 8,033 ÷ 250 wpm = 32 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The String of Pearls or Don Quixote?
The String of Pearls is longer — 437,085 words against 429,052 for Don Quixote, a difference of 8,033 words or about 32 min of extra reading. Don Quixote is the harder read, at grade 26.4 against 8.9.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 59828 and no. 996 — 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.
