How many words are in War and Peace?
by Leo Tolstoy · 1869 · Literary Fiction
563,290
Word count
39 hr 27 min
Reading time
2,254
Est. pages
1869
Published
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is approximately 563,290 wordslong. At an average reading speed of 238 words per minute, that's about 39 hr 27 min of reading spread across several sittings. First published in 1869, 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 563,290 words, War and Peace runs longer than the typical range, in epic territory.
Source: Word count computed from the Project Gutenberg plain-text edition (eBook #2600); reflects this public-domain English translation · referenceVerified 2026-06-21
Literary Fiction novels of similar length
| Title | Author | Word count |
|---|---|---|
| Les Misérables | Victor Hugo | 565,630 |
| The Count of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | 460,976 |
| Don Quixote | Miguel de Cervantes | 427,246 |
| David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | 354,826 |
| Bleak House | Charles Dickens | 353,463 |
| Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | 349,775 |