The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20 vs A Terrible Temptation
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
33words between them — 0 min of it
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20 is longer — 133,949 words against 133,916 for A Terrible Temptation, a difference of 33 words or about 0 min of extra reading. The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20 is the harder read, at grade 8 against 7.4.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20 | A Terrible Temptation | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Stevenson, Robert Louis | Reade, Charles |
| Words | 133,949 | 133,916 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 8h 56m | 8h 56m |
| Unique words | 12,699 | 10,318 |
| Sentences | 6,747 | 7,293 |
| Average sentence length | 19.9 words | 18.4 words |
| Reading grade | 8 | 7.4 |
| Reading ease | 72.7 | 75 |
| Long words | 7.6% | 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 = |133,949 − 133,916| = 33 words 33 ÷ 250 wpm = 0 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20 or A Terrible Temptation?
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20 is longer — 133,949 words against 133,916 for A Terrible Temptation, a difference of 33 words or about 0 min of extra reading. The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20 is the harder read, at grade 8 against 7.4.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 30849 and no. 7895 — 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.
