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longest novel ????


crotalus_p

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"While War and Peace, which has some 460,000 Russian and French words, has in the English translation over 560,000 words, and over 3.1 million characters; typically it is over 1400 pages as a paperback, it seems rather to be Henry Darger's novel, The Story of the Vivian Girls, which takes the cake for being the longest novel in the English language.

 

The Bible is not a novel, but rather a series of books explaining our origins in religious and historical narrative.

 

According to Wikipedia, the longerst novel is by Henry Darger, The Story of the Vivian Girls.

This is an "illustrated fantasy novel manuscript, typed single-spaced with 15,145 pages in 10 volumes. Discovered after Darger's death, the manuscript has never been published. The total number of words has been estimated; some believe this might be the longest novel ever written. [1] The most conservative guess will put this in the million-word realm, possibly into tens of millions."

 

Other lenghty novels --in English-- on record include L.Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth, with 1.2 million words; Samuel Richardson's Clarissa about 969,000 words; Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy 591,552 words. Seth's Suitable Boy is the longest conventional novel in English since Clarissa, and allegedly, according to a Wikipedia participant, though source is not properly cited, the longest novel in the English language published in a single volume."

 

Quick google result there.

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A book of the history of the Earth with 10,000 years on each page would be 145 miles long and take about 17,000 years to read at 1 minute per page!

 

The things I learn in Biology...

 

But on my bookshelf a book about London which is just under 1000 I think.

Edited by Cadenza
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The longest book I have on my shelf is The Count of Monte Cristo. I can't remember exactly how many pages it is, but it's well over 1000.

 

I didn't realise this book was so long..... is it a good read Ruth? I love the story ......

 

The longest book that sits on my shelf is the abridged version of Gulag Archipelago, not a novel but still an enthralling read. I don't know exactly how many pages but it is over 700.:)

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