10 Longest Novels Of All Time

Below are the longest books in literary history by word count. From genre-defining bestsellers to forgotten epics, these novels are all impressively, or excessively long, depending on how readers feel about novels that go on for over a thousand pages. For ambitious readers, who want to learn more about the most ambitious books of all time, this list is here to serve as a guide.

A few things to keep in mind up front before getting started. This list catalogs the longest English-language novels by word count. Except where noted, it focuses on books published in one single volume. (In several instances, the novel was simply too long for that to be possible.)

This list also considers the pluses and minuses of the long novel, as an art form. In some cases, it is a selling point, while in others, it might be a hindrance to the book's success, and its lasting legacy. That's why this list covers both iconic books and literary deep-cuts, in order by total number of words.

10

IT

Written By Stephen King; Published In 1986

Most people probably come into reading this list wondering: how many spots does Stephen King own, and which of King's massive tomes makes the cut? These are fair questions. The answer is two spots, and it is exactly the two novels you'd expect: IT and The Stand.

Of the two, IT is about 30,000 words, or a decent novella's length shorter. At just over 445,000 words, IT secures the #10 spot on this list, just edging out James Clavell's Shogun by another 25k words, give or take a thousand. (Don't worry, Clavell-heads, he still makes the list a few spots down.)

That puts IT in the 1100-page range, and like many of King's best books, it is not the easy read one might expect given its commercial success. IT is a challenging opus of literary horror, and like the rest of the entries below, it has the kind of density that fewer and few authors, or publishers, are willing to commit to these days.

9

The Stand

Written By Stephen King; Unabridged Second Edition Published In 1990

Stephen King's second, revised edition of The Stand stands in excess of 470,000 words and 1100+ pages. That is The Complete & Uncut Edition, which King released in 1990 at the peak of his success, after being dissatisfied with the original 1978 edition for over a decade.

The Stand was King's first shot at a post-apocalyptic, horror genre equivalent to The Lord of the Rings. If he'd started working on The Stand just a few years later, it might have ended up a multi-volume saga like The Dark Tower books.

Instead, it stands as a monolithic must-read standalone novel, and one of the best American novels of its generation. Yet as exhaustive as The Stand might seem, it is still only #9 on this list, with eight even longer works of fiction ahead of it.

8

Infinite Jest

Written By David Foster Wallace; Published In 1996

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, is the most recent English-language novel to crack the Top 10. Which is partly why it is the first doorstopper that comes to mind when people think "long novel," and for just as many people, why it is the first they think of when they think "too long novel."

The thing about the density of Wallace's book is that the text is (often jarringly) fragmentary and non-linear. There are only hints of a plot in the book's 1000+ pages, which is extremely frustrating for some readers, endlessly fascinating for others. The novel's style is often called "hysterical realism" for a reason. It walks a tightrope act between gravely serious and absurdly funny on almost every page.

Infinite Jest is a singular novel, for better or worse, which came in just a few thousand words shy of usurping the next text on the list for the #7 spot.

7

Gai-Jin

Written By James Clavell; Published In 1993

Author James Clavell's "Asian Saga" spans six increasingly huge novels, published between 1962 and 1993. The first installment, King Rat, was 400 pages, while its follow-up Tai-Pan clocked in at over 700. The next four books in the Saga were each in the 1150-page range, making each one as long individually as volumes one and two combined.

That is a monumental undertaking, and it all culminated with Gai-Jin, Clavell's 487,000 swan song for his Saga, though it is chronologically the third of the six novels. Like the preceding books, Gai-Jin is a daunting but immersive work of historical fiction, among the best in the genre's long history.

Even more than David Foster Wallace and Stephen King's work, Gai-Jin and the rest of James Clavell's "Asian Saga" are a relic of a time when gigantic novels were more than norm, and less the exception to the rule.

6

Atlas Shrugged

Written By Ayn Rand; Published In 1957

With Atlas Shrugged in the #6 spot, the approximate word counts we're dealing with here take a leap forward to the tune of about 70k words. Ayn Rand's philosophical brick of a book is over 560,000 words, by the accepted modern count, though it was publicized at the time of its release as being in excess of 650,000.

Either way, Atlas Shrugged was an arduous undertaking for Ayn Rand to write, and remains just as such for readers to get through. These days, Rand, her philosophy, and her fiction all have an increasingly divisive reputation, and Atlas Shrugged was widely criticized upon its publication, but still, the book has carved out a lasting legacy for itself in the American consciousness.

Part of that is the sheer scope of Rand's book alone. At a time when American fiction was marked by the audacity of male writers, Rand stepped in and showed she could beat them at their own game with one of the weightiest novels of the mid-20th century. Literally and intellectually.

The Top 5

All the titles on this list so far have been more or less instantly recognizable. Virtually everyone knows Stephen King's work, and most readers have heard of books like Infinite Jest ​​​​​​​and Atlas Shrugged. James Clavell, or Gai-Jin might not have widespread name recognition, but Shogun is still popular (and currently airing a modern adaptation on FX) enough to lead readers back to the author and his other works.

The five longest English-language novels, by contrast, are deep cuts. Largely forgotten outside of hardcore literary circles, with their incredible lengths being their main lasting legacies in the popular consciousness. Still, for anyone who wants to say they've read all the longest books in history, the following titles are must-reads.

5

A Suitable Boy

Written By Vikram Seth; Published In 1993

Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy came out the same year as James Clavell's Gai-Jin, making 1993 truly the apex of exorbitantly long fiction. It was the first of Seth's three novels, and the first and third both run around 300-400 pages, while A Suitable Boy is a staggering 1,350, constituting just shy of 600,000 words.

A Suitable Boy is a period piece, set in post-partition India, and a family drama. With such an extensive word and page count, one might expect a sprawling generational saga, but really, A Suitable Boy comprehensively chronicles a year-and-a-half period in its characters lives.

The book was widely praised at the time of its publication, not just for its scope, but for its readability. This should make its length, and its under-the-radar status these days, daunting for readers who want to give the book a shot.

4

Miss Macintosh, My Darling

Written By Marguerite Young; Published In 1965

Now we're getting into truly startling word count territory. Author Marguerite Young published two books of poems in the 1940s, a handful of short stories from the '40s to the 60s, and some nonfiction late in life, plus one novel in 1965, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling. The reason for that is Young started writing her novel in 1945 and it took her twenty years.

And that wasn't two decades of stop/start, on/off progress. It was steady work, which produced a text in the neighborhood of 700,000 words and 1200 pages. Young's psychologically immersive American odyssey of a novel is unlike anything else most people will read in their lifetimes.

Which makes it worth giving the old college try, even if most people are destined not to make it through the book from start to finish.

3

Sironia, Texas

Written By Madison Cooper; Published In 1952

Sironia, Texas is all-but-forgotten now, except as a footnote in 20th-century literary history, or perhaps a Jeopardy! question. Madison Cooper's 1952 novel is the first of only two multi-volume texts on this list. It is a single novel, but at 1,700 pages and 840,000 words, it was simply too long, too huge, to print in a lone volume.

The book's setting, Sironia, is a fictional Texas town through which the author explored, in the greatest possible detail, every facet of early 20th-century Texan life. What makes this literary project truly astonishing, though, is that Madison Cooper wasn't a professional author. He was a businessman, who started writing short stories under a pseudonym in his mid-20s, and later worked on Sironia, Texas all through his 50s before publishing it in his early 60s.

The novel proved to be a bestseller and brief literary phenomenon, but Cooper died just a few years after its publication, and the enormous novel has been out of print for decades now, though used copies are still out there.

2

Poor Fellow My Country

Written By Xavier Herbert; Published In 1975

Poor Fellow My Country was Australian author Xavier Herbert's fourth and final novel, written over the course of decades. Like Gai-Jin, A Suitable Boy, and Sironia, Texas, it is a work of historical fiction. This one set in Australia during the 1930s and '40s. It is cited as the longest single-volume English-language novel at nearly 1500 pages and over 850,000 words.

A work of fiction of this length is hard to comprehend even for readers who love big books, It is the kind of book you don't just read, but live inside for as long as it takes to finish.

It's also the kind of book that should remind readers that reading can be a marathon, rather than a sprint. And that it is okay to take time away from a book between chapters, and between sections, and to come back to it when ready.

1

Clarissa

Written By Samuel Richardson; Published In 1748

This is it. The longest English-language novel ever. Originally published in seven volumes, sometimes compressed into four or expanded to nine, depending on the edition. Clarissa is unlike anything else in the history of fiction.

Samuel Richardson's record-shattering opus, which is close to a million words long, wasn't a serialized story, or a sequence of novels. It is one epistolary tale that is so unending, so gruelingly realistic, that it had to be split up into multiple physical texts.

Clarissa is a literary masterpiece, even if that is hard to recognize by modern standards, but more than that, it is a literary artifact. First published in the 18th century, it is a window into a direction that English-language novels could have gone. Instead, it is a unique, inimitable relic of mind-boggling literary ambition.