Friday, February 10, 2012

21 Longest Novels (by word count)

Book Title Author # of Words Language Volumes
Artamène Madeleine and Georges de Scudéry 2,100,000 French 10
Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté Jules Romains 2,070,000 French 27
het bureau J. J. Voskuil 1,590,000 Dutch 7
In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1,500,000[1] French 7
L'Astrée Honoré d'Urfé (completed by Balthazar Baro and Pierre Boitel) 1,422,700 French 6
Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady Samuel Richardson 969,000[2] Third edition substantially increased text to over 1 million words. English 9
Sironia, Texas Madison Cooper 1,100,000[3] (est.)[4] English 2
Zettels Traum Arno Schmidt ~1,000,000 German 1
Poor Fellow My Country Xavier Herbert 850,000[5] English 1
Women and Men Joseph McElroy 716,000 English 1
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling Marguerite Young 700,000[6] English 1
Varney the Vampire James Malcolm Rymer (alternatively attributed to Thomas Preskett Prest) 667,000[7] English 1
The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 657,000 German 3
Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 645,000[8] English 1
The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later Alexandre Dumas, père 626,000[9][10][11] French 1
A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth 591,552[12] English 1
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 575,000[13] English 1
War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 560,000[14] Russian/French 4
Il mulino del Po Riccardo Bacchelli 559,800 Italian 3
Remembrance Rock Carl Sandburg 532,030[15] English 1
Les Misérables Victor Hugo 513,000 French 1