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. The ones that begin so grandly then morph into multivolume nightmares that never seem to end. Its the longest urdu novel ever written, and if you go by word count alone, its the longest literary work ever written. Clocking in at 2,673 years old, its the oldest book ever discovered, by a little over a hundred years.
The english translation is remembrance of things past or in search of lost time. No doubt frank, the number one proust scholar in america from little miss sunshine would have read this even though its 1. Its theme of involuntary memory is repeated through the course. I wanted to identify the shortest novel ever written in order to solve a mystery thats been. It has been published in 9 volumes over a period of 40 years. It had to be published in 10 volumes, totalling,095 pages and. The novel spans a whopping 56 volumes, contains 11,206,310 words that cover 8,128 pages. It may be a matter of numeric measurement, but thickest doesnt necessarially mean hardest, or even longest. The novel, written in three books, is a story of ideas, which takes place during the last days of the. Armen shekoyan, an armenian writer committed to producing the worlds longest novel, says. 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. 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.
Even the authors know they are bloated beasts, for example take tad williams, writer of the memory, sorrow. A suitable boy is a novel by vikram seth, published in 1993. The battle of the bulge and the epic story of wwiis most decorated platoon. Top 10 longest novels in the english language listverse. Thickest books ever 851 books goodreads share book. Anyway, here are the longest books ever written by american authors. 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. 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. A suitable boy by vikram seth which is an amazing piece of literary work and personally i consider his lifes masterpiece is simply magnanimous. A sequel, to be called a suitable girl, was due for publication in 2017.
The battle of the bulge and the epic story of wwiis most decorated platoon kershaw, alex on. Often described as the worst fantasy novella ever written, the eye of argon is difficult to read with a straight face. The longest novel in a single volume that i have ever read is a suitable boy by vikram seth. It was in fact larger but the publishers managed to convince him to shed a. The longest literary works ever written mental itch. We may earn a small comission from the companies or products mentioned in this post. The longest book every written was the yongle dadian, an encyclopedia with 11,095 volumes and 22,877 chapters. The original published version was full of typos and. Here is the list of some of the longest books ever. 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.
Then you can start reading kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer no kindle device required. 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. Length of a book is typically associated with its sizespecifically page countleading. Also, length is no measure of the difficulty in reading a book. This task ended up being much more complex than one would think a list of longest books ever should be. 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. 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. 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. More broadly, do you hope to ever turn this into, or write, a published book. The list of books and their page counts was supplied by kings office and refers to the american hardcover editions. The longest book ever written the longest book ever written is called yongle dadian.
The 7 longest books in american history america fun fact. 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. 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. Du temps perdu translated as remembrance of things past is the worlds longest novel, according to guinness world records. The length of a book is usually at least among the readers considered to be the number of pages from cover to cover. Of course, in fantasy, there are long novels, but there are also really long book series. It, however, isnt even close to being the longest book. Top 10 longest books in the world 2018 update articles. Its six pages and 24k gold, and written in etruscan characters and illustrated. To aid you in your worthwhile endeavor, ive sought out the shortest novels written by a. 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. Here are just a few books that took their authors years to complete, but in most cases the results were worth the wait. There have been some truly massive books written over the years.
The 7 longest books in america the longest novel ever published was written in the 1600s. My friend whos been urging me to read this for ages tells me shed give it ten stars if she could. It contains 3,958 pages in four volumes and took 10 years to complete. Meet the college junior behind the longest fan fiction ever. Its recorded by guinness as the longest book ever written. Here, he definitively answers the ageold question of how long the longest book in the world could be. I used word count, not number of pages, as the measure of length, and 3. The longest novel is artamene ou le grand cyrus, originally published. Other commentators cite henry dargers in the realms of the unreal, a 15,000 page, handwritten tome that has yet to see print. It is currently the longest novel published in modern chinese.
For a full list of record titles, please use our record. Once youre done reading about the worlds longest novel, check out some of. Its the only book of this list that i have read a little from. All records listed on our website are current and uptodate. 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. Enter your mobile number or email address below and well send you a link to download the free kindle app. 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. The best longest books vote for books that are really long, but really good. The shortest novels written by 20 authors you shouldve.
Seay, whose book clocks in at 592 pages, picks 10 other long books worth the investment. 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. Quick clarification here, when we compare book lengths, it must be done using word count. And i thought the stand was long its only 1168 pages.
Proust produced the first volume of his volume masterpiece in 1912 it was first published in 19. Meet the college junior behind the longest fan fiction ever sections. Its the longest urdu novel ever written, and if you go by word. An enclyclopedia with 11,095 volumes and 22,877 chapters. 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. A long novel tends to be no longer than a pages at most, which is already pushing the boundary. It is supposedly the worlds longest published novel in english at 2. 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. It was written over the course of three decades and published in the monthly suspense digest, continuously for 33 years. While not for the novice reader, this book is rewarding to read and is one of the longest science fiction books of all time. This is a list of the longest novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher.
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. It is the longest japanese novel and also one of the longest ever written. A glorious mess in a career of glorious messes, pynchons longest and. Unfortunately, there are also times when authors just cant seem to finish writing a book, much to the dismay of fans. Kings latest, under the dome, is his third longest novel ever. 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.
This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. My french edition of harry potter and the order of the phoenix is the longest book i. How many pages were in the longest book ever written answers. The oldest book of all time is the etruscan gold book, found in a canal in bulgaria, and is now in the bulgarian history museum. It comes in at just under 800 pages, and was written by a 20th century reclusive master, thomas pynchon. Yep, that is my summer reading, he replied, glancing down at the 1,088page behemoth of a novel. While a classic, i feel it could probably have done with a bit of an edit in some of the middle sections. 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. The second part of his work won international awards as soon as it was published and with them, an international reputation. 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.
This book in malayalam is known as the longest written in an indian language. King on king stephen king on his 10 longest novels. 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. The book is entitled shree haricharitramrut sagar and is a biography of bhagwan shree swaminarayan. However, the editors and the publishers are counting a bit different they count the number of words.
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