List of longest novels

This is a list of published novels with over 500,000 words. Currently, the longest novel in the world is Venmurasu, a modern setting of the Hindu epic Mahabharatha, finished in 2020 by Tamil writer Bahuleyan Jeyamohan which has over 2,300,000 words.

Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words, or characters are counted. Length of a book is typically associated with its size (specifically its page count) leading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size. However, translating the story into different languages and dialects results in different word counts.

Comparison of methods

There are at least three ways to determine length:

• Character count is the best estimate of the total numbers of spaces, written characters, and punctuation.
• Word count is another method. Using computer software to count words is the current preferred method for academia and publications. However it is not very meaningful when comparing different languages, for instance, because some languages use more words to express a given idea than others.
• Due to formatting, the page count will depend on the choice of paper size, font, style, formatting, and illustrations in the published work, and thus cannot be considered a reliable measure of length, despite it being the easiest physical indicator of length to determine.

For the purposes of this list, word count is ideal.

A particular difficulty is created when comparing word counts across different writing systems. The logographic Chinese characters used to write East Asian languages each represent one morpheme and are not separated by spaces. The same character may at times stand for one word, and other times form part of a larger word. For instance, the characters 中 zhong and 国 guo can be used independently to mean "middle" and "kingdom", respectively, but can also be combined into Zhongguo 中国, "China" (i.e. "The Middle Kingdom"). One could theoretically construct a noun phrase Zhongguo Zhong Guo 中国中国 meaning "kingdoms in the middle of China". The absence of any formal marking of word boundaries means that it would be difficult to mechanically determine if such a phrase consists of two, three, or four words without knowing Chinese. East Asian bibliographies therefore generally give only the character count without attempting any word count. However, there are similar difficulties in European languages: in some cases it is arbitrary whether an expression is written as one word or two: e.g. airshow vs. air show; in German it is very common to link two or more words together to form compound words – merely reflecting a feature of the language. In Japanese, some characters represent "words" and others only represent "syllables".

A rough approximation can sometimes be obtained by citing the word count of a translation into a Latin alphabet language like English (if such a translation exists), but this will vary to some extent depending on the style of English adopted by the translator. However, citing a translation has the advantage that it indicates how many words are required to convey the same meaning in the target text, not how many "words" the source text actually contains.

Criteria

For the purposes of the list, a "novel" is defined as a single work in print or electronic form that has been published through a mainstream publisher, has acquired publishing rights from authors, or has garnered significant coverage as self-published work. A "single work" is defined as works thought of as one novel by the author but published in multiple volumes for the sake of convenience.

Excluded are non-notable self-published works (included printed-on-demand, vanity, and fanfiction works), unpublished novels, novel sequences, novel cycles, and record-grabbing stunts written solely for the title of the longest work.

List

Book title	Author	Year	Original Publisher	Volumes	Word count	Language	Notes
A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight	Henry Williamson	1951–1969	Macdonald	15	3,000,000	English	The sequel to The Flax of Dream tetralogy
Venmurasu	B. Jeyamohan	2014–2020	Vishnupuram Publications	26	2,300,000	Tamil	Published online from December 2014 to July 2020
Devta	Mohiuddin Nawab	1977–2010	Jasoosi Digest Publications	56	2,206,310 (as of volume 49)	Urdu	Published in the magazine Suspense Digest from February 1977 to January 2010
Men of Good Will (Les Hommes de bonne volonté)	Jules Romains	1932–1946	Knopf	14	2,070,000	English (translation from French)	Translated into English by Warre B. Wells and Gerard Hopkins
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night	Anonymous and Hanna Diyab	1888	The Kama Shastra Society	17	2,026,936	English (translation from Arabic and Persian)	Translated into English by Sir Richard Francis Burton, it is the only complete annotated English translation of One Thousand and One Nights (known as the Arabian Nights) to date The original ten volumes were supplemented with seven volumes of The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night
Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus	Georges and/or Madeleine de Scudéry	1649–1653	Augustin Courbé	10	1,954,300	French
Worm	John McCrae	2011–2013	WordPress		1,680,000	English	Published online in a web serial format from 2011 to 2013
Het Bureau (The Office)	J. J. Voskuil	1996-2000	Van Oorschot	8	1,590,000	Dutch	Longest novel in Dutch Published between 1996 and 2000
Gordana	Marija Jurić Zagorka	2007	Školska knjiga	12	1,400,000 (estimated)	Croatian	The longest novel in Croatian Zagorka wrote a sequel Kraljica Hrvatâ (The Queen of the Croats) between 1937 and 1939.
Bottom's Dream (Zettels Traum)	Arno Schmidt	1970 (translated 2016)	Dalkey Archive Press	1	1,300,000 (estimated)	English (translation from German)	Translated into English by John E. Woods Longest novel published in one volume
In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu)	Marcel Proust	1913–1927 (translated 1922–1931)	Gallimard	7	1,267,069	English (translation from French)	Translated into English by C. K. Scott Moncrieff The current Guinness World Records holder for the longest novel
Mission Earth	L. Ron Hubbard	1985–1987	Bridge Publications	10	1,200,000	English
Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine Brüder)	Thomas Mann	1933–1943 (translated 1948)	Everyman's Library	4		English (translation from German)	Translated into English by H. T. Lowe-Porter
Blinding (Orbiter)	Mircea Cărtărescu	1996–2007 (translated 2013)	Humanitas	3		Romanian
A Dance to the Music of Time	Anthony Powell	1951–1975	Arrow	12	1,000,000	English
Dessen Sprache du nicht verstehst	Marianne Fritz	1986	Suhrkamp	12		German
Kelidar	Mahmoud Dowlatabadi	1984	Farhang Moaaser	10	950,000	Persian	Longest novel in Persian
The Great Eastern (O Megas Anatolikos)	Andreas Embirikos	1990	Agra	8		Modern Greek	Longest novel in Modern Greek
Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady	Samuel Richardson	1748		7	943,000 (estimated)	English	Revised through four editions between 1747 and 1761
Sivagamiyin Sapatham (The Vow of Sivagami)	Kalki Krishnamurthy	1944–1946	Bharathan Publications	4		Tamil	Published in the magazine Kalki from January 1944 to June 1946
Ponniyin Selvan (The Son of Ponni)	Kalki Krishnamurthy	1950–1954 (translated 1999)	Bharathan Publications	5	900,000	Tamil	Published in the magazine Kalki from October 1950 to May 1954 Translated into English by C. V. Karthik Narayanan
Poor Fellow My Country	Xavier Herbert	1975	HarperCollins	1	852,000	English
Women and Men	Joseph McElroy	1987	Knopf	1	850,000 (estimated) 700,000 (estimated)	English
Journey to the West (西遊記)	Wu Cheng'en	c. 1592 (translated 1977–1983)		4		English (translation from Chinese)	Translated into English by Anthony C. Yu One of the Four Great Classical Novels of China
Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) (A Dream of the Red Mansions/The Story of the Stone)	Cao Xueqin (Edited by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E)	c. 1791 (translated 1973–1980)		5	845,000 (estimated)	English (translation from Chinese)	Translated into English by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang and later David Hawkes and John Minford One of the Four Great Classical Novels of China
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義)	Luo Guanzhong (Edited by Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang)	c. 14th century (Translated 1925)		5	800,000 (estimate)	English (translation from Chinese)	Translated by Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor One of the Four Great Classical Novels of China
Water Margin (水滸傳) (Outlaws of the Marsh/The Marshes of Mount Liang)	Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong	c. 14th century (Translated 1937)		5		English (translation from Chinese)	Translated by J. H. Jackson One of the Four Great Classical Novels of China
Jin Ping Mei (金瓶梅) (The Plum in the Golden Vase/The Golden Lotus)	The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling	c. 1610 (translated 1993–2013)		5		English (translation from Chinese)	Translated into English by David Tod Roy Edited by Zhang Zhupo in 1695 A spin-off from Water Margin
The Legend of the Condor Heroes	Jin Yong	2018–2021	MacLehose Press	4		English (translation from Chinese)	The first part of the Condor Trilogy.
Sironia, Texas	Madison Cooper	1952	Houghton Mifflin	2	840,000 (estimated)	English
Shanghai	David Rotenberg	2008	Penguin	1	800,000 (estimated)	English	Prequel to Zhong Fong
Sir Charles Grandison	Samuel Richardson	1753		1	750,000 (estimated)	English	Restored and corrected through four editions between 1753 and 1761
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling	Marguerite Young	1965	Scribners	1	750,000 (estimated) 576,000 (estimated)	English
Varney the Vampire	James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest	1845–1857	Edward Lloyd	1	667,000	English	Originally published in serial penny dreadful pamphlets
Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl	Uwe Johnson	1970–1983 (translated 2018)	Suhrkamp Verlag	4	665,441	German	Published in four volumes from 1970 to 1983 Translated into English by Damion Searls in a two-volume set
Atlas Shrugged	Ayn Rand	1957	Random House	1	645,000 (estimate by the publisher and by The New York Times)	English
Jean-Christophe	Romain Rolland	1904‒1912	Henry Holt	3	610,000 (estimated)	English (translation from French)	Published in ten volumes from 1904 to 1912 Translated into English by Gilbert Cannan
Jerusalem	Alan Moore	2016	Knockabout	1	600,000 (estimated)	English
"...And Ladies of the Club"	Helen Hooven Santmyer	1982	Ohio State University Press	1	600,000 (estimated)	English
War and Peace (Война и мир)	Leo Tolstoy		Knopf	1	600,000	English translation from Russian
A Suitable Boy	Vikram Seth	1993	Penguin Books	1	593,674	English
F. L. Věk	Alois Jirásek		Československý spisovatel (last printed edition, 1976–1977)	1	571,350	Czech
The Mill on the Po (Il mulino del Po)	Riccardo Bacchelli		Arnoldo Mondadori Editore	3	559,830	Italian
Les Misérables	Victor Hugo	1862 (translated 1862)	Librairie internationale A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven, et Cie.	1	545,925	English (translation from French)	Translated into English by Charles E. Wilbour (1862) and Isabel Florence Hapgood (1887) Several passages were edited out at the request of Albert Lacroix, but some French editions included these in the appendix; no English version contains these deleted passages
Infinite Jest	David Foster Wallace		Back Bay Books	1	543,709	English
Remembrance Rock	Carl Sandburg		Mariner Books	1	532,030 and 673,000	English	Word counts obtained from Amazon digitization (eBook) word count, and author's own count.
The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition	Stephen King		Doubleday	1	514,827	English
To Green Angel Tower	Tad Williams		DAW Books	1	520,000	English	Word counts obtained from Amazon digitization (eBook) word count.
Horcynus Orca (Killer Whale)	Stefano D'Arrigo		Arnoldo Mondadori Editore	1	508,751	Italian	The first draft is published as I Fatti della Fera (The Facts of the Fera).
The Neapolitan Novels	Elena Ferrante		Europa Editions (2018)	4	543,000	English translation from Italian	The author published this novel in four installments due to its length but acknowledges it as a single novel.
My Struggle (Min Kamp)	Karl Ove Knausgård		Farrar, Straus, and Giroux	6	1,000,000	English translation from Norwegian
Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities)	Robert Musil		Knopf	2		English Translation from German	The author died before he could finish the novel.
The Tale of Genji	Murasaki Shikibu		Penguin Classics (Illustrated Deluxe edition)	1	750,000	English translation from Japanese	This is perhaps the first novel of the world but it is partially lost. It consists of 54 chapters but back in the Heian Period, it used to be circulated in 60 chapters and most scholars are of the opinion that there is a lost chapter between the current chapters one and two. Some scholars consider the chapters after chapter 41 to be a sequel and a separate work as Hikaru Genji dies after chapter 41 and the story continues with his son, Prince Kaoru.
Musashi	Eiji Yoshikawa		Pocket Books	5		English translation from Japanese	There is an abridged single volume edition that is 984 pages long in hardback edition.
The Vicomte de Bragelonne	Alexandre Dumas			5	626,000	French	The final part of The d'Artagnan Romances trilogy. An unexpurgated English translation by Lawrence Ellsworth in progress. As of 2022, only 2 out of 5 volume had been fully translated into English and the English translation of the third volume is being published online on Substack platform.
The Mohicans of Paris	Alexandre Dumas		Gallimard (Collection Quarto edition, 1998)	2		French	Inspired by Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of Paris.
The Mysteries of Paris	Eugène Sue		Penguin Classics paperback	1	580,000	English translation from French	This highly popular novel was published serially in Journal des débats. Word count obtained from Project Gutenberg English translation eBook (Chapman & Hall, 1845).
The Wandering Jew	Eugène Sue		Skyhorse	1	530,000	English translation from French	This highly popular novel was published serially in Journal des débats. Word count obtained from Project Gutenberg English translation eBook (Routledge, 1889).
Juliette	Marquis de Sade		Grove Press	1		English translation from French	The sequel to the third version of Justine called The New Justine that has not been translated into English yet.
Black Bess; or, The Knight of the Road	Edward Viles		E. Harrison (c. 1860)	3	833,000	English	Originally published anonymously, in serial "penny dreadful" pamphlets. A romanticized tale of Dick Turpin that was a popular subject of that time. Each page has two columns and there are a few illustrations scattered throughout the novel. Word count obtained from Internet Archive eBook.
Le Morte d'Arthur: The Winchester Manuscript	Sir Thomas Malory		Clarendon Press	3		English	The third edition edited by Eugène Vinaver and Reverend P J C Field (1990).
Chlopi (The Peasants)	Władysław Reymont		Naklad Gebethnera i Wolffa /Alfred A. Knopf	4		English translation from Polish
The Viscount of Adrilankha	Steven Brust		Tor Books	3		English	A fantasy novel set in the world of Dragaera. narrated by Paarfi of Roundwood. The novel is the final part of the Khaavren Romances trilogy, which is based on Alexandre Dumas's The Vicomte de Bragelonne.
Whirlwind	James Clavell		William Morrow	1		English	The sixth book in The Asian Saga A sequel was posthumously titled Escape
L'Astrée	Honoré d'Urfé, Balthazar Baro, and Pierre Boitel Sieur de Gaubertin			6/5		French
Nevaeh Saga	Marcel Duriez	2024	WordPress, Internet Archive, Barnes and Noble, Lulu, Fanfictions.com	88	18,398,000 words with spaces included or 126,239,708 characters spaces included Words without spaces added in is 9,199,000.	English	36,796 pages, written time frame 105,192 hours, or 12 years.

“Lengthiest Independently Published,” “Nevaeh Saga,” The world’s longest independent novel in the modern times, “Nevaeh Saga,” by Marcel Ray Duriez. It contains or constitutes and comprises a fact given total of 126,239,708 characters and 18,398,000 words with spaces included. The page count is of published pages in paperback books sold as one book set: 36,796, Weight of all novels summed is: 44 pounds, or 19.958 Kilograms. Height is 8 inches, Width is 5 inches, Length is 65.12 inches. 12 font, New Times Roman 1.5 spacing, 0.5 margins. Passing J. K Rowling 12 times over from her million words. Passing Marcel Proust by 11 million words and by his book size of 10 in a book set. Thus at 7" wide x 9" height, books- Nevaeh. Estimated chapters of 520, Paragraphs were typed in the documents: 109,864, Averaging 6 hours or so a day, for 2,000 words typed a day, would be 105,192 thus saying (96,426) is right. Days invested in comprising the time to type or write all words in the document is: 4,383 days or around 105,192 hours, or 12 years.

Other list (non-Latin and Cyrillic)

Malayalam

• Avakasikal by Vilasini: This book in Malayalam is known as the second longest written in an Indian language. It contains 3,958 pages in four volumes and took 10 years to complete.

Japanese

• Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (shinjitai: 南総里見八犬伝; kyūjitai: 南總里見八犬傳) (The 8 Dog Warriors of the Satomi Clan of Nansō) written by Kyokutei Takizawa Bakin is a very popular epic historical fantasy and romance novel of the Yomihon category in 106 volumes. It was written and published over a period of nearly twenty-eight years (1814–42).
• Tokugawa Ieyasu by Sōhachi Yamaoka: The 40 volumes of this historical novel were published serially between 1950 and 1967. The complete text includes more than 10 million Japanese characters. It is the longest Japanese novel after Nansō Satomi Hakkenden and also one of the longest ever written.
• Daibosatsu Toge by Nakazato Kaizan: Published in 41 volumes and 1533 chapters, this unfinished historical novel includes 5.7 million Japanese characters.

Chinese

• Qin Empire by Sun Haohui: Published in 6 volumes, this historical novel includes 5 million Chinese characters.
• The Popular Romance of Chinese Dynasties by Cai Dongfan: Published in 11 volumes and 1080 chapters (1040 chapters by Cai Dongfan, the last 40 chapters by Xu Jinfu), this historical novel includes 6 million Chinese characters.
• On the Plateau by Zhang Wei: Scheduled to include 4.5 million Chinese characters, the ten volume fully published in 2010 and became the longest Chinese novel in prose.
• Li Zicheng by Yao Xueyin: This historical novel completed in 1999 includes 3.4 million Chinese characters. It has been published in 9 volumes over a period of 40 years. It is currently the longest novel published in modern Chinese.
• The Swordspeople from Shu Mountains by Huanzhulouzhu: Published in 309 chapters, although unfinished, this Wuxia novel includes 4.1 million Chinese characters.
• The Chinese classic wuxia novelist Jin Yong wrote 7 long novels that surpass 500000 Chinese characters, of which the longest are The Deer and the Cauldron (1,230,000 characters) and Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (1,211,000 characters).
• Gu Long wrote his longest single classic Wuxia novel Juedai Shuangjiao (The Legendary Siblings/The Peerless, Proud Twin Brothers) in the late 1960s that surpasses 500000 Chinese characters.
• The Chinese wuxia novelist Huang Yi wrote a number of long novels, of which the longest is The Legend of the Twin Dragons of the Tang dynasty (approximately 50,000,000 characters), consisting of 63 volumes (794 chapters) and the revised version is 20 volumes. It has been fully translated unofficially into English on 21 June 2022. Nevaeh 所有的小说都是有空格和没有空格的字符 28,827,000，此时的字数是 5,765,400，页数是 23062，这应该是正确的。书页为 5 英寸 x 8 英寸。

See also

• List of manga series by volume count
• List of longest films

References

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