The shelf
Six classic novels, each in six sentences.
Listed by year of first publication. Every page has six sentences of our own, three figures computed from the text, key terms and the sources we read.
Side by side
Long and short, bright and dark.
“Darker slices” counts how many of a book's forty slices score below zero for tone. It is a measure of wording, not plot.
Word counts from the Project Gutenberg texts, after removing the Gutenberg header, footer and contents pages. Reading time assumes 238 words a minute, a common average for adults reading for pleasure.
Counted by us · reading time at 238 words per minute
| Book | Author | First published | Words | Chapters | Reading time | Darker slices |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | 1813 | 121,850 | 61 | 8 h 32 min | 0 of 40 |
| Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | 1818 | 71,876 | 23 | 5 h 02 min | 14 of 40 |
| Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | 1847 | 186,163 | 38 | 13 h 02 min | 5 of 40 |
| Moby-Dick | Herman Melville | 1851 | 209,384 | 135 | 14 h 40 min | 10 of 40 |
| Dracula | Bram Stoker | 1897 | 161,057 | 27 | 11 h 17 min | 6 of 40 |
| The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 1925 | 48,402 | 9 | 3 h 23 min | 12 of 40 |