If you’re a big reader then you’ve probably read a mixture of very short and very long books in your lifetime. And you’ve probably wondered how long some of your favourite stories are. But because time sometimes slows down or speeds up when we’re engrossed in a good story, it’s very hard to compare the length of different stories by reflecting on our experiences. The number of pages also doesn’t help much, as publishers use different typefaces, page sizes, font sizes, etc. The ultimate measure of a story’s size is its wordcount, however, so the literary geeks here at Foster Grant have put together a list of many of the most popular books and short stories in history for you. Make sure you take a look at our range of reading glasses if you need a little help reading your next book!

What’s the Difference Between a Novel, a Novella, and a Short Story?

First off, it’s important to be able to tell the difference between a novel and a novella, a short story and a piece of flash fiction.

Flash fiction is anything from 100 to 500 words

A short story is usually anything from 1,000 to 8,000 words, but many are often longer

A novella is usually between 20,000 and 50,000 words

The average novel is usually between 80,000 and 100,000 words

An epic novel is anything over 110,000 words

Word Counts in Different Genres

There are no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to what word count a novel in a particular genre should be. However, there are averages and rough word counts expected by publishers. Of course, figures differ depending on which publisher you ask, so the following figures are merely approximations derived from various sources.

Crime – 90,000 to 100,000 words

Thrillers – 70,000 to 90,000 words

Literary – 80,000 to 110,000 words

Romance – 40,000 to 100,000 words

Fantasy – 90,000 to 110,000 words

Horror – 80,000 to 100,000 words

Science – 90,000 to 125,000 words

Historical – 100,000 to 120,000 words

Literary Fiction

Literary fiction is a slightly difficult genre to define sometimes, as it tends to contain a mixture of all genres. One thing that seems to connect all books considered ‘literary’ is that they are all considered to be intelligently written. However, there are intelligent books in all genres, so literary fiction is really just the upper echelons of books considered ‘good’ by revered critics and academics.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee – 100,388 words

Gullivers Travels, Jonathan Swift – 107,349 words

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte – 107,945 words

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain – 109,571 words

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner – 56,695 words

Lord of the Flies, William Golding – 59,900 words

Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Wolf – 63,422 words

Black Beauty, Anna Sewell – 59,635 words

The Colour Purple, Alice Walker – 66,556 words

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson – 66,950 words

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway – 67,707 words

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde – 78,462 words

Epic Literary Fiction Novels

Epic novels are works of fiction that are 110,000 words or over.

Ulysses, James Joyce – 265,222 words

Bleak House, Charles Dickens – 360,947 words

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens – 183,349 words

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo – 530,982 words

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy – 561,304 words

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy – 349,736 words

Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell – 418,053 words

Moby Dick, Herman Melville – 206,052 words

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway – 174,106 words

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden – 186,418 words

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë – 183,858 words

Catch-22, Joseph Heller – 174,269 words

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen – 126,194 words

Atonement, Ian McEwan – 123,378 words

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry – 365,712 words

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand – 561,996 words

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 211,591 words

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck – 169,481 words

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez – 144,523 words

Fantasy Books

Fantasy readers usually expect all their books to be epic. So, most of the famous fantasy novels are over 110,000 words – although there are a few exceptions…

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke – 308,931 words

American Gods, Neil Gaiman – 183,222 words

The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett – 65,113 words

Eragon, Christopher Paolini – 157,000 words

Word counts of the books in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series:

A Wizard of Earthsea – 56,533 words

The Tombs of Atuan – 45,939 words

The Farthest Shore – 60,591 words

Tehanu – 99,200 words

Tales from Earthsea – 128,960 words

The Other Wind – 89,280 words

Word counts of the books in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series:

A Game of Thrones – 298,000 words

A Clash of Kings – 326,000 words

A Storm of Swords – 424,000 words

A Feast for Crows – 300,000 words

A Dance with Dragons – 422,000 words

The entire A Song of Ice and Fire series (so far) – 1,770,000 words

Word counts of the books in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series:

The Hobbit – 95,356 words

The Fellowship of the Ring – 187,790 words

The Two Towers – 156,198 words

The Return of the King – 137,115 words

The entire Lord of the Rings series (including The Hobbit) – 576,459 words

Word counts of the books in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – 76,944 words

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – 85,141 words

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – 107,253 words

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – 190,637 words

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – 257,045 words

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – 168,923 words

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – 198,227 words

The entire Harry Potter series – 1,084,170 words

Word counts of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series:

The Golden Compass – 112,815 words

The Subtle Knife – 109,120 words

The Amber Spyglass – 168,640 words

Word counts of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series:

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe – 38,421 words

Prince Caspian – 46,290 words

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – 53,960 words

The Silver Chair – 51,022 words

The Horse and His Boy – 48,029 words

The Magician’s Nephew – 64,480 words

The Last Battle – 43,333 words

Science Fiction