How long does it take to read the complete Sherlock Holmes?

The complete Sherlock Holmes canon — four novels and 56 short stories — runs about 72 hours in Stephen Fry's unabridged narration. That is the figure given here because it is a measured runtime rather than an estimate: no reliable word count for the complete canon exists, and the totals that circulate online are implausibly low. At 72 hours it is a larger commitment than the Harry Potter series. Doyle killed Holmes off in 1893 and was pressured into reviving him eight years later, so roughly two thirds of the canon exists because of public complaint.

The numbers

Total

2 days 23 hours

In hours

72 hours

Non-stop

3 days without sleeping

Covers

4 novels and 56 short stories, narrated unabridged

At a realistic pace

an hour a night

That works out as

about 72 days

As an audiobook

2 days 23 hours

What this assumes

The runtime of the Stephen Fry unabridged audiobook, not a reading time. Reading it silently would be substantially faster, but no trustworthy word count for the canon is published.

Given as an audiobook runtime because published word counts for the complete canon are unreliable — the most commonly quoted figure of about 236,000 words is far too low for four novels and 56 stories.

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