The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) vs Fifty Years In The Northwest
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
1,219words between them — 5 min of it
The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) is longer — 283,323 words against 282,104 for Fifty Years In The Northwest, a difference of 1,219 words or about 5 min of extra reading. The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) is the harder read, at grade 8.9 against 6.2.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) | Fifty Years In The Northwest | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Gillespie, George | Folsom, William H. C. (William Henry Carman) |
| Words | 283,323 | 282,104 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 18h 53m | 18h 48m |
| Unique words | 15,850 | 14,812 |
| Sentences | 15,794 | 26,811 |
| Average sentence length | 17.9 words | 10.5 words |
| Reading grade | 8.9 | 6.2 |
| Reading ease | 62.9 | 69.4 |
| Long words | 12.8% | 12% |
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 = |283,323 − 282,104| = 1,219 words 1,219 ÷ 250 wpm = 5 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) or Fifty Years In The Northwest?
The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) is longer — 283,323 words against 282,104 for Fifty Years In The Northwest, a difference of 1,219 words or about 5 min of extra reading. The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) is the harder read, at grade 8.9 against 6.2.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 26849 and no. 36375 — 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.
