List of longest novels

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Like determining the list of tallest buildings, figuring the list of longest novels would yield different results depending on what criteria are used.

While word and character figures are common standard, word and character become interchangeable depending on the language used. In alphabetic writing, several letters are combined to make a syllable, which are combined to make a word. In the Korean language, each character expresses one syllable, significantly reducing the number of characters needed to express one word. Japanese, borrowing its word roots in part from Chinese, uses a combination of ideographs combined with syllabic symbols for inflection.

The number of pages in a novel proportional the number to the words and/or characters is another standard but what counts as a novel is another variable. For the purposes of this list, a novel is defined as a single work in print or electronic form that is not published by the author but rather through a mainstream publisher (i.e., not a vanity or print on demand company) that acquires publishing rights from authors. Due to this definition, the list intentionally omits a number of other very long works.

The advent of very inexpensive self publishing has allowed authors to easily and inexpensively create a literary work that meets all of the conventional criteria that a text must meet to be called a novel. Some very long examples have generated considerable attention from the mass media, such as the 17-million-word Marienbad My Love by Mark Leach and the 13-million-word The Blah Story by Nigel Tomm. The Story of the Vivian Girls, a nine-million-word novel by outsider artist Henry Darger has never been published but continues to generate considerable attention from art critics and the media. Novel cycles are essentially multivolume of books that share a fictional universe yet could be read independently. In some cases, authors and publishers might disagree on how to publish literary works and break up a novel into a series and vice versa. Word counts can easily climb into the millions. Noteworthy examples include the Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson and Perry Rhodan, a German series of novels claiming over 150 million words in more than 2,300 parts. High word counts can be found in many works of fan fiction, including Cevn McGuire’s Trial by Tenderness at about two million words.

Contents 1 Longest novels in Latin or Cyrillic alphabets 1.1 Madeleine and Georges de Scudéry, Artamène 1.2 Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu 1.3 Madison Cooper, Sironia, Texas 1.4 Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time 1.5 Samuel Richardson, Clarissa 1.6 Xavier Herbert, Poor Fellow My Country 1.7 Marguerite Young, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling 1.8 Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 1.9 Alexandre Dumas, père, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, ou Dix ans plus tard 1.10 Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy 1.11 Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace 1.12 Carl Sandburg, Remembrance Rock 1.13 Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 1.14 Marija Jurić Zagorka, Gordana 1.15 Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities 1.16 Table of longest novels 2 Longest novels in scripts other than Latin or Cyrillic 2.1 Kyokutei Bakin, The Eight Dog Chronicles 2.2 Sohachi Yamaoka, Tokugawa Ieyasu 2.3 Nakazato Kaizan: Daibosatsu Toge 2.4 Li Guiyu: Dream of the Pomegranate Flowers 2.5 Yang Fuguo, Kuangshi Qiyuan 2.6 Yao Xueyin, Li Zicheng (novel) 2.7 Vilasini, Avakasikal 2.8 Cao Xueqin, Dream of the Red Chamber 3 See also 4 References

Longest novels in Latin or Cyrillic alphabets

The longest novels in Latin or Cyrillic alphabets include:

Madeleine and Georges de Scudéry, Artamène

Published in ten volumes from 1649–53. The two-author work contains 2.1 million words.^{[citation needed]} Available online (in French only) at Artamene.org.

Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu

Longest conventionally-read novel. 9,609,000 characters^[1] , nearly 1.5 million words. Holds the Guinness Book of Records title as Longest Novel. Published in 7 volumes from 1913 to 1927. English translation is titled Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time.

Madison Cooper, Sironia, Texas

Published 1952. 1731 pages, originally published in two volumes.^[2] Estimated at 1,100,000 words.^[3]

Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time

Published from 1951 to 1975, as a partial tribute to Proust. Published in 12 volumes, it is sometimes regarded as a novel sequence^{[by whom?]}. At over 1 million words, it is a contender for the longest English-language novel ever written.

Samuel Richardson, Clarissa

Published 1748. First edition contains about 969,000 words. Third edition contains some 5,500,000 characters, over one million words.^[4] Published in nine volumes.

Xavier Herbert, Poor Fellow My Country

Published 1975. At 1463 pages and 850,000 words, it is the longest Australian novel.^[5]

Marguerite Young, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling

Published 1965. Contains "700,000 words on 1,198 closely printed pages".^[6]

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Published 1957. Approximately 540,000 words. 1168 pages.^[7]

Alexandre Dumas, père, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, ou Dix ans plus tard

Written in 1847. When published in English it was usually split into three parts The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Valliere and The Man in the Iron Mask. Estimated at some 626,000 French words.^[8][9][10]

Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

Published 1993. 1488 pages softcover. 591,552 words.^[11] The longest conventional novel in English since Clarissa and one of the longest novels in the English language published in a single volume.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Published from 1865 to 1869. Original text has some 460,000 Russian and French words. English translation contains over 560,000 words and over 3.1 million characters; typically over 1400 pages as a paperback.^[12]

Carl Sandburg, Remembrance Rock

Published 1948. 532,030 words.^[13]

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Published 1862. Nearly 513,000 French words. Unabridged French edition (ISBN 2070102645) 1779 pages (including essays).

Marija Jurić Zagorka, Gordana

Originally published in serial format, but later in between 8 and 12 volumes (depending on the printing), the 1935 Croatian tome Gordana and spans over 5200 pages. The word count is unknown. Arguably the longest Croatian novel, Gordana is also one of the world's longest books as well.

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities

Published in three parts, two in 1930, the third after Musil's death in 1941. Unfinished at over 1700 pages.

Table of longest novels

	Book Title	Author	# of Words	Language	Volumes
1	The Blah Story	Nigel Tomm	11.3 million	English	23
2	The Story of the Vivian Girls	Henry Darger	9 million	English
3	Wheel of Time fantasy series	Robert Jordan completed by Brandon Sanderson	3,430,682	English	11
4	Artamene	Madeleine and Georges de Scudéry	2.1 million	French	10
5	Trial by Tenderness	Cevn McGuire	almost 2 million	English
6	À la recherche du temps perdu	Marcel Proust	1.5 million	French	7
7	Mission Earth	L. Ron Hubbard	1.2 million	English	10
8	Sironia, Texas	Madison Cooper	1.1 million	English	2
9	A Dance to the Music of Time	Anthony Powell	more than 1 million	English	12
10	Clarissa	Samuel Richardson	969,000	English	9
11	Poor Fellow My Country	Xavier Herbert	850,000	English
12	Miss MacIntosh, My Darling	Marguerite Young	700,000	English
13	Atlas Shrugged	Ayn Rand	645,000	English
14	Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, ou Dix ans plus tard	Alexandre Dumas, père	626,000	French
15	A Suitable Boy	Vikram Seth	591,552	English
16	War and Peace	Leo Tolstoy	460,000 / 560,000	Russian & French / English
17	Remembrance Rock	Carl Sandburg	532,030	English
18	Les Misérables	Victor Hugo	513,000	French
*	Gordana	Marija Jurić Zagorka	5600 pages	Croatian	8-12
*	The Man Without Qualities	Robert Musil	1700 pages	German

Longest novels in scripts other than Latin or Cyrillic

East Asian languages, like Chinese or Japanese, are more compact in their written forms than their Western counterparts. As such these works are often lengthier in translations even if their character spacing required are the same as when compared to Cyrillic or Latin alphabets.

Kyokutei Bakin, The Eight Dog Chronicles

Published in 106 volumes, this work was immensely popular during its time and is a classical example of the late yomihon genre, which is considered as the forerunner of novels. It took the author 28 years (1814-1842) to complete.

Sohachi Yamaoka, Tokugawa Ieyasu

This 40-volume historical novel was serialized from 1950-67. The completed novel contains over 10 million Japanese characters. It is not just the longest novel in the Japanese language, but also one of the longest in any language.

Nakazato Kaizan: Daibosatsu Toge

Published in 41 volumes and 1533 chapters, this historical novel was the longest in the Japanese language until Tokugawa Ieyasu. 5.7 million Japanese characters.^[14]

Li Guiyu: Dream of the Pomegranate Flowers

Completed 1841. 4,838,400 Chinese characters.^[15] Written in recitative verse, this is the longest narrative in the Chinese language, four times longer than Dream of the Red Chamber. Critics differ in opinion whether to classify it as a novel or narrative poem.

Yang Fuguo, Kuangshi Qiyuan

Projected at 4.2 million Chinese characters, this novel is completed but has not yet been published in its entirety. Once publishing is complete, it would be the longest Chinese-language prose novel published. The first volume was published in 2005.^[16]

Yao Xueyin, Li Zicheng (novel)

This historical novel, completed in 1999, has the distinction of being the longest modern Chinese-language novel printed, at 3.4 million Chinese characters. It was published in 5 volumes over 40 years.

Vilasini, Avakasikal

Reputedly the longest novel in any Indian language, Avakasikal was written in Malayalam. It runs 3,958 pages in four volumes and took 10 years to complete.^[17]

Cao Xueqin, Dream of the Red Chamber

Written in the 18th century. Currently published as a 120-chapter, five-book sequence, running over 2500 pages.^[18] The incomplete English translation at Project Gutenberg contains over 440,000 words and over 2.4 million characters. At slightly over 1 million Chinese characters, however, it is not even remotely the longest Chinese-language novel (see above).

The 1999 Beijing edition (English translation) contains 4 volumes with a total of 2556 pages.

See also

• Length of a novel

References