How many words are in Moby-Dick?
by Herman Melville · 1851 · Literary Fiction
206,052
Word count
14 hr 26 min
Reading time
825
Est. pages
1851
Published
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville is approximately 206,052 wordslong. At an average reading speed of 238 words per minute, that's about 14 hr 26 min of reading spread across several sittings. First published in 1851, it sits in the Literary Fiction category.
Typical literary fiction novels run 70,000–100,000 words, with a sweet spot around 80,000–90,000. At 206,052 words, Moby-Dick runs longer than the typical range, in epic territory.
Source: Word count from Project Gutenberg plain text edition (public domain) · referenceVerified 2026-06-19
Literary Fiction novels of similar length
| Title | Author | Word count |
|---|---|---|
| Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | 183,858 |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | 169,481 |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | 135,420 |
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | 122,189 |
| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | 109,571 |
| Beloved | Toni Morrison | 109,211 |