Word count is one of those things new writers worry about but deny worrying about because we’re not supposed to be worrying about it. According to Wikipedia’s entry on word count, the typical word count of a novel is at least 80,000 words. I’ve heard through the publishing world grapevine than most agents and editors will generally take a query for a first novel more seriously if the word count is between 80,000 and 100,000.

Instead of sleeping, I compiled in an Excel sheet novels I read growing up. They’re mostly classics because those are the only ones where word count is easily obtained. More contemporary fiction would require more digging. I wouldn’t say I personally love every one of these books, but I would regard them as classics, as great novels in themselves, even if the particular author wasn’t that impressive of a writer.

Author — Book Title — Word Count

(in case it wasn’t obvious)

Alan Paton Cry, the Beloved Country 83,774 Alice Walker The Color Purple 66,556 Amy Tan The Kitchen God’s Wife 159,276 Amy Tan Joy Luck Club 91,419 Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged 561,996 Ayn Rand The Fountainhead 311,596 Betty Smith A Tree Grows in Brooklyn 145,092 Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities 135,420 Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders 138,087 Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights 107,945 Erich Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front 61,922 Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises 67,707 Frank Norris McTeague 112,737 Fyodor Dostoyevsky Crime and Punishment 211,591 George Eliot Middlemarch 316,059 George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four 88,942 Harper Lee To Kill A Mockingbird 99,121 Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin 166,622 Henry David Thoreau Walden 114,634 Honore de Balzac Pere Goriot 87,846 J.D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye 73,404 James Fenimore Cooper Last of the Mohicans 145,469 Jane Austen Persuasion 87,978 John Knowles A Separate Peace 56,787 John Steinback The Grapes of Wrath 169,481 John Steinback East of Eden 225,395 Joseph Heller Catch-22 174,269 Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five 49,459 Kurt Vonnegut Welcome to the Monkey House 99,560 Leo Tolstoy War and Peace 587,287 Margaret Atwood Alias Grace 157,665 Mark Twain The Adventures of Huck Finn 109,571 Mark Twain Life on the Mississippi 127,776 Maxine Hong Kingston Woman Warrior 70,957 Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being 85,199 Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter 63,604 Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray 78,462 Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 46,118 Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles 64,768 Toni Morrison Song of Solomon 92,400 Virginia Woolf Mrs. Dalloway 63,422 William Faulkner As I Lay Dying 56,695 William Golding Lord of the Flies 59,900

The Stats:

Average word count of the Great Novels is 136,604 words. That’s like the literary institution’s recommended word count for first novels plus a long novella! But the arithmetic mean isn’t very helpful here because we’ve got some doozies on this list.

Median word count is 99,341 words. That’s longer than Wikipedia’s estimation of the typical novel length, but just about right as a target word count for budding novel writers.

Longest novel on the list is Tolstoy’s War and Peace (surprise, surprise) at 587,287 words. Note that Ayn Rand’s cult classic Atlas Shrugged isn’t that far behind, at 561,996 words.

Shortest novel on the list is Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, one of my personal favorites, at 46,118 words. Most of Hemingway’s novels make pretty slim books too.

Word count on the Bible, Old and New combined: 774,776 words according to Source A and 788,280 words in the King James according to Source B. But the Bible’s word count isn’t relevant here because first of all, it’s not by one author unless you want to go there with me and say it’s God and in that case, well, it’s God, so yeah.

Then again, considering the oeuvres of certain writers, like John Steinbeck, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, and even Amy Tan, they’ve already written way more than 700,000-ish words.

Need A Life:

I can’t believe I just sat here and compiled that list. By the way, I came up with each book off the top of my head, either by author name or by title. I wrecked my brains from the excursion. I need to go do something like shop for shoes or eat ice cream now…. Ugh.

Word count on past PEN/Faulkner Award winners:

Chabon, Michael The Amazing Adventures… 216,020 Banks, Russell Cloudsplitter 260,742 Franzen, Jonathan The Corrections 196,774 Cooper, Susan The Dark Is Rising 82,143 Danticat, Edwidge The Dew Breaker 60,082 Phillips, Caryl A Distant Shore 103,090 Packer, ZZ Drinking Coffee Elsewhere 68,410 Robinson, Marilynne Gilead 84,845 Cunningham, Michael The Hours 54,243 Kennedy, William Ironweed 67,606 McMurtry, Larry Lonesome Dove 365,712 Kingsolver, Barbara The Poisonwood Bible 177,679 Guterson, David Snow Falling on Cedars 138,098 Hegi, Ursula Stones from the River 197,517 Canales, Viola The Tequila Worm 42,715 Jin, Ha Waiting 89,297 Jin, Ha War Trash 130,460

A few surprises here. I thought Ha Jin’s Waiting was longer than 89,000 words because that book lumbered like some sort of literary elephant and took me more than one night to read. Normally books don’t take me more than one night to read. I’m also surprised at the brevity of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours.

Thus far, I have about the same word count as Danticat’s Dew Breaker, but the characters have a lot more work to do before the end.

Word count on novels that fall under Amazon.com’s category of “Asian American Literary Fiction”:

Title–Author–Wordcount

A Gesture Life Chang-Rae Lee 112995 Native Speaker Chang-Rae Lee 108568 Aloft Chang-Rae Lee 112481 The Tapestries Kien Nguyen 107251 The Village Bride of Beverly Hills Kavita Daswani 65450 In Full Bloom Caroline Hwang 91577 Breaking the Tongue Vyvyane Loh 135294 Zen Attitude Sujata Massey 76157 Queen of Dreams Chitra Divakaruni 93176 Buddha Baby Kim Wong Keltner 80032 The Dim Sum of All Things Kim Wong Keltner 81994 Pastries Bharti Kirchner 101217 Mambo Peligroso Patricia Chao 93491 Somebody’s Daughter Marie Myung-Ok Lee 87811 The Island of Bicycle Dancers Jiro Adachi 77821 One Hundred Million Hearts Kerry Sakamoto 73996 Dream Jungle Jessica Hagedorn 90764 The Gangster of Love Jessica Hagedorn 90909 Long Stay in a Distant Land Chieh Chieng 59856 Beijing Doll Chun Sue 59913 Shanghai Baby Wei Hui 79507 Invisible Lives Anjali Banerjee 55328 The People’s Republic of Desire Annie Wang 106032 Candy Mian Mian 80434 The Space Between Us Thrity Umrigar 102992 Transparency Frances Hwang 65817 Kept: A Comedy of Sex and Manners Y. Euny Hong 81287 Typical American Gish Jen 79105 Hundred Secret Senses Amy Tan 117799 When the Emperor Was Divine Julie Otsuka 34381 Becoming Madame Mao Anchee Min 104979 Empress Orchid Anchee Min 134598 The Inheritance of Lost Kiran Desai 106698 Country of Origin Don Lee 84335 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Lisa See 99945 Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri 62164 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 104172 Free Food for Millionaires Min Jin Lee 207907 The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston 69989 Sons of Heaven Terrence Cheng 86681 When My Sister was Cleopatra Moon Frances Park 56480 American Son Brian Ascalon Roley 54858 My Year of Meats Ruth L. Ozeki 104746 When the Elephants Dance Tess Uriza Holthe 164718 Night of Many Dreams Gail Tsukiyama 79151 The Language of Threads Gail Tsukiyama 83953 Lost Names Richard E. Kim 64073

(Not including the books named in other tables above that would count as “APA Literature”)