The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4 vs Le Morte d'Arthur
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
584words between them — 2 min of it
The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4 is longer — 169,343 words against 168,759 for Le Morte d'Arthur, a difference of 584 words or about 2 min of extra reading. Le Morte d'Arthur is the harder read, at grade 9.2 against 7.6.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4 | Le Morte d'Arthur | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron | Malory, Thomas, Sir |
| Words | 169,343 | 168,759 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 11h 17m | 11h 15m |
| Unique words | 18,867 | 5,793 |
| Sentences | 9,602 | 6,525 |
| Average sentence length | 17.6 words | 25.9 words |
| Reading grade | 7.6 | 9.2 |
| Reading ease | 72.1 | 75.1 |
| Long words | 8.6% | 4.5% |
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 = |169,343 − 168,759| = 584 words 584 ÷ 250 wpm = 2 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4 or Le Morte d'Arthur?
The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4 is longer — 169,343 words against 168,759 for Le Morte d'Arthur, a difference of 584 words or about 2 min of extra reading. Le Morte d'Arthur is the harder read, at grade 9.2 against 7.6.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 20158 and no. 1251 — 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.
