How long does it take to read a book?

An average adult reads a 300-page book in about 6 hours. For the classics below we counted the real words, so you can see the time at your own speed.

Don't know your speed? Take the 1-minute reading speed test and it will appear here.

Reading time for 25 classics

Word counts come from the public domain editions included in Lince. Times are pure reading: no breaks.

Book	Words	Time
The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman	6,078	26 min
As a Man Thinketh James Allen	7,467	31 min
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson	25,574	1 h 47 min
A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens	28,435	1 h 59 min
The Call of the Wild Jack London	31,765	2 h 13 min
The Time Machine H. G. Wells	32,377	2 h 16 min
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum	39,272	2 h 45 min
The Prince Niccolò Machiavelli	45,150	3 h 10 min
Meditations Marcus Aurelius	46,035	3 h 13 min
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald	48,121	3 h 22 min
The Four Million O. Henry	48,948	3 h 26 min
The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle	59,112	4 h 08 min
The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells	59,882	4 h 12 min
Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne	62,751	4 h 24 min
Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson	67,867	4 h 45 min
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain	69,948	4 h 54 min
Essays: First Series Ralph Waldo Emerson	74,147	5 h 12 min
Frankenstein Mary Shelley	74,975	5 h 15 min
The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde	78,928	5 h 32 min
Tales of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe	92,655	6 h 29 min
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle	104,423	7 h 19 min
Walden Henry David Thoreau	106,357	7 h 27 min
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen	121,702	8 h 31 min
Dracula Bram Stoker	160,170	11 h 13 min
Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë	184,452	12 h 55 min

How we calculate it

Time is the number of words divided by your words per minute. We start at 238 words per minute, the estimate for silent reading of non-fiction in English from a review of 190 studies. Fiction averaged about 260, and your real speed changes with the book and how tired you are.

Why pages are only an estimate

A page can hold anywhere from 200 to 400 words depending on the edition, so we count 300. If you know a book's word count, that gives a better answer.