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This is a list of published novels with over 500,000 words. Currently, the longest novel in the world is Venmurasu , a modern setting of the Hindu epic Mahabharatha, finished in 2020 by Tamil writer Bahuleyan Jeyamohan which has over 2,300,000 words.
Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words, or characters are counted. Length of a book is typically associated with its size (specifically its page count) leading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size. However, translating the story into different languages and dialects results in different word counts.
There are at least three ways to determine length:
For the purposes of this list, word count is ideal.
A particular difficulty is created when comparing word counts across different writing systems. The logographic Chinese characters used to write East Asian languages each represents one morpheme and is not separated by spaces. The same character may at times stand for one word, and other times form part of a more significant word. For instance, the characters 中 zhong and 国 guo can be used independently to mean "middle" and "kingdom", respectively, but can also be combined into Zhongguo 中国, "China" (i.e. "The Middle Kingdom"). One could theoretically construct a noun phrase Zhongguo Zhong Guo 中国中国 meaning "kingdoms in the middle of China". The absence of any formal marking of word boundaries means it would be difficult to mechanically determine if such a phrase consists of two, three, or four words without knowing Chinese. East Asian bibliographies therefore generally give only the character count without attempting any word count. However, there are similar difficulties in European languages: in some cases, it is arbitrary whether an expression is written as one word or two: e.g. airshow vs. air show; in German, it is very common to link two or more words together to form compound words – merely reflecting a feature of the language. In Japanese, some characters represent "words" and others only represent "syllables".
A rough approximation can sometimes be obtained by citing the word count of a translation into a Latin alphabet language like English (if such a translation exists), but this will vary to some extent depending on the style of English adopted by the translator. However, citing a translation has the advantage of indicating how many words are required to convey the same meaning in the target text, not how many "words" the source text actually contains.
For the purposes of the list, a "novel" is defined as a single work in print or electronic form that has been published through a mainstream publisher, has acquired publishing rights from authors, or has garnered significant coverage as self-published work. A "single work" is defined as works thought of as one novel by the author but published in multiple volumes for the sake of convenience.
Excluded are non-notable self-published works (included printed-on-demand, vanity, and fanfiction works), unpublished novels, novel sequences, novel cycles, and record-grabbing stunts written solely for the title of the longest work.
Book title | Author | Year | Original Publisher | Volumes | Word count | Language | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight | Henry Williamson | 1951–1969 | Macdonald | 15 | 3,000,000 [1] | English | The sequel to The Flax of Dream tetralogy | |
Venmurasu | B. Jeyamohan | 2014–2020 | Vishnupuram Publications | 26 | 2,300,000 | Tamil | Published online from December 2014 to July 2020 | |
Devta | Mohiuddin Nawab | 1977–2010 | Jasoosi Digest Publications | 56 | 2,206,310 (as of volume 49) | Urdu | Published in the magazine Suspense Digest from February 1977 to January 2010 | |
Men of Good Will (Les Hommes de bonne volonté) | Jules Romains | 1932–1946 | Knopf | 14 | 2,070,000 | English (translation from French) | Translated into English by Warre B. Wells and Gerard Hopkins | |
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night | Anonymous and Hanna Diyab | 1888 | The Kama Shastra Society | 17 | 2,026,936 | English (translation from Arabic and Persian) | Translated into English by Sir Richard Francis Burton, it is the only complete annotated English translation of One Thousand and One Nights (known as the Arabian Nights) to date The original ten volumes were supplemented with seven volumes of The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night | |
Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus | Georges and/or Madeleine de Scudéry [lower-alpha 1] | 1649–1653 | Augustin Courbé | 10 | 1,954,300 | English translation from French | translated into English in the early 19th century by F. G. Gent | |
Worm [2] | John McCrae | 2011–2013 | WordPress | 1,680,000 | English | Published online in a web serial format from 2011 to 2013 [3] | ||
Het Bureau (The Office) | J. J. Voskuil | 1996-2000 | Van Oorschot | 8 | 1,590,000 | Dutch | Longest novel in Dutch Published between 1996 and 2000 | |
Gordana | Marija Jurić Zagorka | 2007 | Školska knjiga | 12 | 1,400,000 (estimated) | Croatian | The longest novel in Croatian in 3 parts. Zagorka wrote a sequel Kraljica Hrvatâ (The Queen of the Croats ) between 1937 and 1939. | |
Bottom's Dream (Zettels Traum) | Arno Schmidt | 1970 (translated 2016) | Dalkey Archive Press | 1 | 1,300,000 (estimated) | English (translation from German) | Translated into English by John E. Woods Longest novel published in one volume | |
In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) | Marcel Proust | 1913–1927 (translated 1922–1931) | Gallimard | 7 | 1,267,069 | English (translation from French) | Translated into English by C. K. Scott Moncrieff The current Guinness World Records holder for the longest novel [4] | |
Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine Brüder) | Thomas Mann | 1933–1943 (translated 1948) | Everyman's Library | 4 | English (translation from German) | Translated into English by H. T. Lowe-Porter | ||
Blinding (Orbiter) | Mircea Cărtărescu | 1996–2007 (translated 2013) | Humanitas | 3 | Romanian | The first volume was translated into English | ||
A Dance to the Music of Time | Anthony Powell | 1951–1975 | Arrow | 12 | 1,000,000 | English | ||
Dessen Sprache du nicht verstehst [5] | Marianne Fritz | 1986 | Suhrkamp | 12 | German | |||
Kelidar | Mahmoud Dowlatabadi | 1984 | Farhang Moaaser | 10 | 950,000 | Persian | Longest novel in Persian | |
The Great Eastern (O Megas Anatolikos) | Andreas Embirikos | 1990 | Agra | 8 | Modern Greek | Longest erotic novel in Modern Greek | ||
Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady | Samuel Richardson | 1748 | 7 | 943,000 (estimated) | English | Revised through four editions between 1747 and 1761 | ||
Ponniyin Selvan (The Son of Ponni) | Kalki Krishnamurthy | 1950–1954 (translated 1999) | Bharathan Publications | 5 | 900,000 | English translation from Tamil | Published in the magazine Kalki from October 1950 to May 1954 Translated into English by C. V. Karthik Narayanan | |
Poor Fellow My Country | Xavier Herbert | 1975 | HarperCollins | 1 | 852,000 [6] | English | ||
Women and Men | Joseph McElroy | 1987 | Knopf | 1 | 850,000 (estimated) [7] 700,000 (estimated) [8] | English | ||
Journey to the West (西遊記) | Wu Cheng'en | c. 1592 (translated in the late 19th century) | 4 | English (translation from Chinese) | Translated into English by Dr. Anthony C. Yu [lower-alpha 2] One of the 6 Classic Chinese Novels. Historical fantasy set in the early 7th century Tang Dynasty | |||
The Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) (A Dream of the Red Mansions/The Story of the Stone) | Cao Xueqin (Edited by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E) | 1792 (translated late 19th century) | 5 | 845,000 (estimated) | English (translation from Chinese) | Domestic Romantic Tragedy translated into English by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang and later David Hawkes and John Minford One of the 6 Great Classical Novels of China | ||
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義) | Luo Guanzhong (Edited by Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang) | c. 14th century (Translated 1925) | 5 | 800,000 (estimate) | English (translation from Chinese) | Translated by Moss Roberts One of the 6 Great Classical Novels of China. Historical novel about the late Han Dynasty and the 3 Kingdoms period. | ||
Water Margin (水滸傳) (Outlaws of the Marsh/The Marshes of Mount Liang) | Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong | c. 14th century (Translated 1937) | 5 | English (translation from Chinese) | Flawed English translations by J. H. Jackson, Sidney Shapiro, Alex and John Dent-Young One of the 6 Great Classical Novels of China. Historical Wuxia set in the early 12th century | |||
Jin Ping Mei (金瓶梅) (The Plum in the Golden Vase/The Golden Lotus) | The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling (Edited by Zhang Zhupo in 1695) | c. 1610 (translated 1939, 1972, 1993–2013) | 5 | English (translation from Chinese) | Translated into English by David Tod Roy and Clement Egerton. An erotic spin-off from Water Margin | |||
The Legend of the Condor Heroes | Jin Yong | 2018–2021 | MacLehose Press | 4 | English (translation from Chinese) | The first part of the Condor Trilogy . Historical Wuxia set in the early to mid-13th century. | ||
Sironia, Texas | Madison Cooper | 1952 | Houghton Mifflin | 2 | 840,000 (estimated) [9] | English | ||
Shanghai | David Rotenberg | 2008 | Penguin | 1 | 800,000 (estimated) | English | Prequel to Zhong Fong | |
Sir Charles Grandison | Samuel Richardson | 1753 | 1 | 750,000 (estimated) | English | Restored and corrected through four editions between 1753 and 1761 | ||
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling | Marguerite Young | 1965 | Scribners | 1 | 750,000 (estimated) [10] 576,000 (estimated) [11] | English | ||
Varney the Vampire | James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest [lower-alpha 3] | 1845–1857 | Edward Lloyd | 1 | 667,000 [12] | English | Originally published in serial penny dreadful pamphlets | |
Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl | Uwe Johnson | 1970–1983 (translated 2018) | Suhrkamp Verlag | 4 | 665,441 | English translation from German | Published in four volumes from 1970 to 1983 Translated into English by Damion Searls in a two-volume set | |
Atlas Shrugged | Ayn Rand | 1957 | Random House | 1 | 645,000 (estimate by the publisher and by The New York Times ) [13] | English | ||
Jean-Christophe | Romain Rolland | 1904‒1912 | Henry Holt | 3 | 610,000 (estimated) | English (translation from French) | Published in ten volumes from 1904 to 1912 Translated into English by Gilbert Cannan | |
Jerusalem | Alan Moore | 2016 | Knockabout | 1 | 600,000 (estimated) [14] | English | ||
"...And Ladies of the Club" | Helen Hooven Santmyer | 1982 | Ohio State University Press | 1 | 600,000 (estimated) [15] | English | ||
War and Peace (Война и мир) | Leo Tolstoy | Knopf | 1 | 600,000 | English translation from Russian | |||
A Suitable Boy | Vikram Seth | 1993 | Penguin Books | 1 | 593,674 | English | ||
F. L. Věk | Alois Jirásek | Československý spisovatel (last printed edition, 1976–1977) | 1 | 571,350 | Czech | |||
The Mill on the Po (Il mulino del Po) | Riccardo Bacchelli | Arnoldo Mondadori Editore | 3 | 559,830[ citation needed ] | Italian | |||
Les Misérables | Victor Hugo | 1862 (translated 1862) | Librairie internationale A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven, et Cie. | 1 | 545,925 | English (translation from French) | Translated into English by Charles E. Wilbour (1862) and Isabel Florence Hapgood (1887) Several passages were edited out at the request of Albert Lacroix, but some French editions included these in the appendix; no English version contains these deleted passages | |
Infinite Jest | David Foster Wallace | Back Bay Books | 1 | 543,709 | English | |||
Remembrance Rock | Carl Sandburg | Mariner Books | 1 | 532,030 [16] and 673,000 [17] | English | Word counts obtained from Amazon digitization (eBook) word count, and author's own count. | ||
The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition | Stephen King | Doubleday | 1 | 514,827 | English | |||
Gaunt's Ghosts | Dan Abnett | Black Library | 4,995 | 16 | 1,300,000 (estimated) | English | ||
To Green Angel Tower | Tad Williams | DAW Books | 1 | 520,000 [18] | English | Word counts obtained from Amazon digitization (eBook) word count. | ||
Horcynus Orca (Killer Whale) | Stefano D'Arrigo | Arnoldo Mondadori Editore | 1 | 508,751 | Italian | The first draft is published as I Fatti della Fera (The Facts of the Fera). | ||
The Neapolitan Novels | Elena Ferrante | Europa Editions (2018) | 4 | 543,000 | English translation from Italian | The author published this novel in four installments due to its length but acknowledges it as a single novel. [19] | ||
My Struggle (Min Kamp) | Karl Ove Knausgård | Farrar, Straus, and Giroux | 6 | 1,000,000 | English translation from Norwegian | |||
Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften ( The Man Without Qualities ) | Robert Musil | Knopf | 2 | English Translation from German | The author died before he could finish the novel. | |||
The Tale of Genji | Murasaki Shikibu | Penguin Classics (Illustrated Deluxe edition) | 1 | 750,000 | English translation from Japanese | This is perhaps the first novel of the world but it is partially lost. It consists of 54 chapters but back in the Heian Period, it used to be circulated in 60 chapters and most scholars are of the opinion that there is a lost chapter between the current chapters one and two. Some scholars consider the chapters after chapter 41 to be a sequel and a separate work as Hikaru Genji dies after chapter 41 and the story continues with his son, Prince Kaoru. | ||
Musashi | Eiji Yoshikawa | Pocket Books | 5 | English translation from Japanese | There is an abridged single volume edition that is 984 pages long in hardback edition. | |||
The Vicomte de Bragelonne | Alexandre Dumas | 5 | 626,000 | French | The final part of The d'Artagnan Romances trilogy. An unexpurgated English translation by Lawrence Ellsworth in progress. As of 2022, only 2 out of 5 volume had been fully translated into English and the English translation of the third volume is being published online on Substack platform. | |||
The Mohicans of Paris | Alexandre Dumas | Gallimard (Collection Quarto edition, 1998) | 2 | French | Inspired by Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of Paris. | |||
The Mysteries of Paris | Eugène Sue | Penguin Classics paperback | 1 | 580,000 | English translation from French | This highly popular novel was published serially in Journal des débats. Word count obtained from Project Gutenberg English translation eBook (Chapman & Hall, 1845). | ||
The Wandering Jew | Eugène Sue | Skyhorse | 1 | 530,000 | English translation from French | This highly popular novel was published serially in Journal des débats. Word count obtained from Project Gutenberg English translation eBook (Routledge, 1889). | ||
Juliette | Marquis de Sade | Grove Press | 1 | English translation from French | The sequel to the third version of Justine called The New Justine that has not been translated into English yet. | |||
Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road | Edward Viles | E. Harrison (c. 1860) | 3 | 833,000 | English | Originally published anonymously, in serial "penny dreadful" pamphlets. A romanticized tale of Dick Turpin that was a popular subject of that time. Each page has two columns and there are a few illustrations scattered throughout the novel. Word count obtained from Internet Archive eBook. | ||
Le Morte d'Arthur: The Winchester Manuscript | Sir Thomas Malory | Clarendon Press | 3 | English | The third edition edited by Eugène Vinaver and Reverend P J C Field (1990). | |||
Chlopi ( The Peasants ) | Władysław Reymont | Naklad Gebethnera i Wolffa /Alfred A. Knopf | 4 | English translation from Polish | ||||
The Viscount of Adrilankha | Steven Brust | Tor Books | 3 | English | A fantasy novel set in the world of Dragaera. narrated by Paarfi of Roundwood. The novel is the final part of the Khaavren Romances trilogy, which is based on Alexandre Dumas's The Vicomte de Bragelonne . | |||
Whirlwind | James Clavell | William Morrow | 1 | English | The sixth and final book in The Asian Saga . Abridged as Escape in 1995 after the author's demise. | |||
L'Astrée | Honoré d'Urfé, Balthazar Baro, and Pierre Boitel Sieur de Gaubertin | 6/5 | French |
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[...] his debut serialized novel, the online superhero drama, Worm [...]
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