Also, the longest novel fiction book ever written, according to the guinness book of world records, is in search of lost time by marcel proust, which has approximately 3,000,000 words in it. To aid you in your worthwhile endeavor, ive sought out the shortest novels written by a. Posted in longest novel, the blah story, tagged longest book ever written, longest book ever written in english, longest book in history, longest book in the world, longest novel, longest novel in english language, longest novel series, longest novels ever written, longest published book, nigel tomm, the blah story on july 16, 2008 leave a. The 7 longest books in american history america fun fact. How many pages were in the longest book ever written answers. Bookofthemonth club said, we consider it the best book our judges have ever selected and it has been better received by our subscribers than any other book. There have been some truly massive books written over the years.
But savoring a book of, say, 800 pages or longer is a project. The list of books and their page counts was supplied by kings office and refers to the american hardcover editions. At 1,349 pages 1,488 pages softcover and 591,552 words, the book is one of the longest novels ever published in a single volume in the english language. Then you can start reading kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer no kindle device required. Top 10 longest novels in the english languagetop 10 longest novels in the english languagei love a long book that i can really get into, so i decided to compile a list of the longest novels ever written. Its the only book of this list that i have read a little from.
It comes in at just under 800 pages, and was written by a 20th century reclusive master, thomas pynchon. King talked to time about his top 10 biggest books, reflecting on the circumstances under which they were written and the critical reception that they received. Its recorded by guinness as the longest book ever written. Even the authors know they are bloated beasts, for example take tad williams, writer of the memory, sorrow. It is the longest japanese novel and also one of the longest ever written. Rated the longest novel ever by the guinness book of world records, theres no doubt that prousts masterpiece could quite easily double up as a mightily effective doorstop, with volumes clocking up nearly 1. Its the longest urdu novel ever written, and if you go by word. Clocking in at 2,673 years old, its the oldest book ever discovered, by a little over a hundred years. Once youre done reading about the worlds longest novel, check out some of. The 15,145page, singlespaced fantasy manuscript called the story of the vivian girls, in what is known as the realms of the unreal, of the glandecoangelinian war storm, caused by the child slave rebellion by henry joseph darger jr.
This is a list of the longest novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. A sequel, to be called a suitable girl, was due for publication in 2017. The longest sentence contains the longest word, both of them belong to nigel tomm and both are published in the longest novel the blah story. The 7 longest books in america the longest novel ever published was written in the 1600s. Meet the college junior behind the longest fan fiction ever sections. Often described as the worst fantasy novella ever written, the eye of argon is difficult to read with a straight face. Kings latest, under the dome, is his third longest novel ever. For a full list of record titles, please use our record.
It was written over the course of three decades and published in the monthly suspense digest, continuously for 33 years. Armen shekoyan, an armenian writer committed to producing the worlds longest novel, says. This task ended up being much more complex than one would think a list of longest books ever should be. Sure, you could start with their most famous book, but if your real, secret goal is to only say youve read soandso at your next party and not be lying, why not start with their shortest. My french edition of harry potter and the order of the phoenix is the longest book i. The original published version was full of typos and. The second part of his work won international awards as soon as it was published and with them, an international reputation. Top 10 longest novels in the english language listverse. Here are just a few books that took their authors years to complete, but in most cases the results were worth the wait. It may be a matter of numeric measurement, but thickest doesnt necessarially mean hardest, or even longest. If you write a book according to the usual criteria, one person may like it, the other may dislike it, but when you write ten volumes, no one will say that the book is in eight.
A 500 page penguin classic may be the same length as a page popular fiction book as the printing is so small, and the pages are so thin. Unfortunately, there are also times when authors just cant seem to finish writing a book, much to the dismay of fans. More broadly, do you hope to ever turn this into, or write, a published book. The battle of the bulge and the epic story of wwiis most decorated platoon kershaw, alex on.
The shortest novels written by 20 authors you shouldve. This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. The longest literary works ever written mental itch. The english translation is remembrance of things past or in search of lost time. The eye of argon, released by theis when he was 16 years old, has the makings of a young, successful first work by an eager and talented author. A suitable boy is a novel by vikram seth, published in 1993. However, the editors and the publishers are counting a bit different they count the number of words.
Its six pages and 24k gold, and written in etruscan characters and illustrated. It is supposedly the worlds longest published novel in english at 2. Other commentators cite henry dargers in the realms of the unreal, a 15,000 page, handwritten tome that has yet to see print. I wanted to identify the shortest novel ever written in order to solve a mystery thats been.
Quick clarification here, when we compare book lengths, it must be done using word count. Enter your mobile number or email address below and well send you a link to download the free kindle app. Here is the list of some of the longest books ever. The novel spans a whopping 56 volumes, contains 11,206,310 words that cover 8,128 pages. While there may be thousands of books to listen to on audible, with plenty that are very long, only one can claim the top as the longest book on this website that book, of course, being the holy bible. A book about individual priorities, metaphysical outlawism, the purpose of the moon, and how to make love stay, still life with woodpecker has also been described as a postmodern fairy tale that takes place inside a pack of camel cigarettes. The length of a book is usually at least among the readers considered to be the number of pages from cover to cover. Also, length is no measure of the difficulty in reading a book. The longest novel is artamene ou le grand cyrus, originally published. It contains 3,958 pages in four volumes and took 10 years to complete. Seay, whose book clocks in at 592 pages, picks 10 other long books worth the investment. A long novel tends to be no longer than a pages at most, which is already pushing the boundary. I could either become a big influence in making many teens and children get into literature, or get my butt sued to high heavens by nintendo. As i did more research, i realized that there were many issues i had to take into consideration when deciding what to include on this list.
Thickest books ever 851 books goodreads share book. Of course, in fantasy, there are long novels, but there are also really long book series. The guinness book of world records gives the honor to marcel prousts elephantine remembrance of things past, weighing in at 9,609,000 characters including spaces. It was in fact larger but the publishers managed to convince him to shed a. King on king stephen king on his 10 longest novels. The ones that begin so grandly then morph into multivolume nightmares that never seem to end. The longest book ever written the longest book ever written is called yongle dadian. Du temps perdu translated as remembrance of things past is the worlds longest novel, according to guinness world records. My friend whos been urging me to read this for ages tells me shed give it ten stars if she could. The longest novel in a single volume that i have ever read is a suitable boy by vikram seth. This book in malayalam is known as the longest written in an indian language. Here, he definitively answers the ageold question of how long the longest book in the world could be. No doubt frank, the number one proust scholar in america from little miss sunshine would have read this even though its 1. We may earn a small comission from the companies or products mentioned in this post.
A suitable boy by vikram seth which is an amazing piece of literary work and personally i consider his lifes masterpiece is simply magnanimous. An enclyclopedia with 11,095 volumes and 22,877 chapters. The book is entitled shree haricharitramrut sagar and is a biography of bhagwan shree swaminarayan. The longest book every written was the yongle dadian, an encyclopedia with 11,095 volumes and 22,877 chapters.
It has been published in 9 volumes over a period of 40 years. And i thought the stand was long its only 1168 pages. The novel, written in three books, is a story of ideas, which takes place during the last days of the. The count of monte cristo at 375,695 words and 1,276 pages in the penguin classics english translation is one of the longest books ive read. The best longest books vote for books that are really long, but really good. If you set out to find the worlds shortest novel, as i recently did, youll run into a crazy pile of misinformation, unsourced quora and yahoo answers pages, ethnic slurs disguised as jokes, and general confusion about the difference between a novel, a novella, and a short story. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading. Meet the college junior behind the longest fan fiction ever. A glorious mess in a career of glorious messes, pynchons longest and. Its theme of involuntary memory is repeated through the course. Regarded as the longest novel ever written in australia, this book consists of over 850,000 words in total, many times more than even the large compendiums written by such authors as j.
While not for the novice reader, this book is rewarding to read and is one of the longest science fiction books of all time. If the book is good you will never want it to end, but what happens when the authors simply had no intention to finish their writings. While a classic, i feel it could probably have done with a bit of an edit in some of the middle sections. It, however, isnt even close to being the longest book. Books with endless words counts and over 60007000 pages length. Its the longest urdu novel ever written, and if you go by word count alone, its the longest literary work ever written. Hello, according to wiki in the sources, the longest book ever written is in search of lost time by marcel proust, with 4,211 pages and about 1,200,000 words. All records listed on our website are current and uptodate.
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