Sorted after counting, never before
Longest sentences
Where the sentences run longest on average. Topped by Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases at 167.6 words per sentence.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·50 of 683 measured texts ranked·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The first fifty, measured
| # | Book | Author | sentences | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases | Kleiser, Grenville | 167.6 words per sentence | 11 min |
| 2 | The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete | Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de | 67.6 words per sentence | 14h 24m |
| 3 | Don Quixote | Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de | 67.6 words per sentence | 28h 36m |
| 4 | The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio | Boccaccio, Giovanni | 64.1 words per sentence | 20h 31m |
| 5 | Utopia | More, Thomas, Saint | 60.7 words per sentence | 2h 54m |
| 6 | The Sceptical Chymist | Boyle, Robert | 55.8 words per sentence | 5h 54m |
| 7 | The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe | Defoe, Daniel | 54.1 words per sentence | 8h 05m |
| 8 | The Expedition of Humphry Clinker | Smollett, T. (Tobias) | 52.4 words per sentence | 9h 56m |
| 9 | Paradise Lost | Milton, John | 50.1 words per sentence | 5h 20m |
| 10 | A Modest Proposal | Swift, Jonathan | 49.5 words per sentence | 14 min |
| 11 | The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman | Sterne, Laurence | 49.5 words per sentence | 12h 35m |
| 12 | In Praise of Folly | Erasmus, Desiderius | 49.4 words per sentence | 2h 59m |
| 13 | Plutarch | Plutarch | 46.2 words per sentence | 49h 22m |
| 14 | The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia | Sidney, Philip | 45.8 words per sentence | 22h 57m |
| 15 | The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete | Smollett, T. (Tobias) | 44.4 words per sentence | 10h 47m |
| 16 | Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete | Montaigne, Michel de | 44.1 words per sentence | 35h 02m |
| 17 | The Adventures of Roderick Random | Smollett, T. (Tobias) | 43.9 words per sentence | 12h 46m |
| 18 | Royal Edinburgh | Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret) | 42.2 words per sentence | 10h 34m |
| 19 | On the Nature of Things | Lucretius Carus, Titus | 41.3 words per sentence | 4h 55m |
| 20 | The Birth of Tragedy | Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm | 40.1 words per sentence | 3h 37m |
| 21 | Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth | Aikin, Lucy | 40.1 words per sentence | 17h 47m |
| 22 | Don Juan | Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron | 39.7 words per sentence | 8h 25m |
| 23 | Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World | Swift, Jonathan | 39.6 words per sentence | 7h 00m |
| 24 | Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10) | Vasari, Giorgio | 39.3 words per sentence | 5h 51m |
| 25 | The Pirate | Scott, Walter | 39.2 words per sentence | 13h 12m |
| 26 | Antiquities of the Jews | Josephus, Flavius | 39 words per sentence | 36h 05m |
| 27 | Hypnerotomachia | Colonna, Francesco | 38.4 words per sentence | 4h 34m |
| 28 | The Prince | Machiavelli, Niccolò | 38.4 words per sentence | 3h 19m |
| 29 | Leviathan | Hobbes, Thomas | 38.1 words per sentence | 14h 09m |
| 30 | History of Tom Jones, a Foundling | Fielding, Henry | 37.7 words per sentence | 23h 25m |
| 31 | King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table | Malory, Thomas, Sir | 37.6 words per sentence | 6h 34m |
| 32 | Under the Red Dragon | Grant, James | 37.2 words per sentence | 10h 05m |
| 33 | Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey | Lockwood, Ingersoll | 36.2 words per sentence | 4h 38m |
| 34 | Forest Days | James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) | 36.1 words per sentence | 11h 19m |
| 35 | Mademoiselle de Maupin, Volume 1 (of 2) | Gautier, Théophile | 36 words per sentence | 4h 35m |
| 36 | Grimms' Fairy Tales | Grimm, Jacob | 36 words per sentence | 6h 44m |
| 37 | The Iliad | Homer | 36 words per sentence | 10h 13m |
| 38 | Standish of Standish | Austin, Jane G. (Jane Goodwin) | 35.9 words per sentence | 7h 45m |
| 39 | The Odyssey | Homer | 35.8 words per sentence | 8h 37m |
| 40 | The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | Irving, Washington | 35.7 words per sentence | 49 min |
| 41 | A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle | Wilberforce, William | 35.5 words per sentence | 6h 59m |
| 42 | Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell | Dante Alighieri | 35.4 words per sentence | 2h 32m |
| 43 | A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive | Mill, John Stuart | 35.1 words per sentence | 27h 17m |
| 44 | Confessions of an English Opium-Eater | De Quincey, Thomas | 35 words per sentence | 2h 34m |
| 45 | The Mysteries of Udolpho | Radcliffe, Ann Ward | 34.2 words per sentence | 19h 28m |
| 46 | Beyond Good and Evil | Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm | 34.1 words per sentence | 4h 11m |
| 47 | Aesop's Fables | Aesop | 34 words per sentence | 2h 46m |
| 48 | Symposium | Plato | 33.8 words per sentence | 2h 11m |
| 49 | The Ballad of the White Horse | Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) | 33.8 words per sentence | 1h 10m |
| 50 | A Heart-Song of To-day (Disturbed by Fire from the 'Unruly Member') | Savigny, Annie G. (Annie Gregg) | 33.6 words per sentence | 7h 17m |
Ranked over the 683 texts measured here, not over everything ever printed — a ranking is only as wide as its shelf. The whole shelf, A to Z.
