---
title: "How long to read Moby-Dick? about 15 hours"
description: "Moby-Dick takes about 15 hours — roughly 209,000 words. What that assumes, how it breaks down, and how long at a realistic pace."
url: https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/moby-dick/
site: "At One Place"
---

# How long does it take to read Moby-Dick?

**How long to read Moby-Dick: about 15 hours**

roughly 209,000 words

Moby-Dick is around 209,000 words, about fifteen hours of reading. Published word counts range from 206,052 to 212,758 depending on which edition is counted, a spread of about 3%. A substantial share of the book is expository material on whales and whaling rather than narrative, which is the usual reason people abandon it around chapter 32. It is shorter than Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by a small margin.

## The numbers

- **Total:** 14 hours 38 minutes
- **In hours:** 14.6 hours
- **Non-stop:** 0.6 days without sleeping
- **Covers:** roughly 209,000 words
- **At a realistic pace:** an hour a night
- **That works out as:** about 15 days

## What this assumes

About 209,000 words at 238 words per minute. Editions differ by roughly 3%.

> No primary source publishes a word count; figures from 206,052 to 212,758 circulate.

## Other books

| What | How long |
| --- | --- |
| Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | about 5 hours 23 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | about 18 hours |
| The Hobbit | about 6 hours 39 minutes |
| The Bible | about 55 hours |
| War and Peace | about 40 hours |
| Infinite Jest | about 40 hours |
| Ulysses | about 19 hours |
| Dune | about 13 hours |
| Pride and Prejudice | about 8 hours 33 minutes |
| Nineteen Eighty-Four | about 6 hours 14 minutes |
| The Great Gatsby | about 3 hours 18 minutes |
| Animal Farm | about 2 hours 6 minutes |
| It | about 31 hours |
| The complete works of Shakespeare | about 59 hours |
| The complete Sherlock Holmes | about 72 hours as an audiobook |
| All of English Wikipedia | about 41 years |

## Common questions

### How long does it take to read Moby-Dick?

about 15 hours — roughly 209,000 words.

### What does that assume?

About 209,000 words at 238 words per minute. Editions differ by roughly 3%.

### How long at a realistic pace?

an hour a night — about 15 days.

## Related pages

- [How long to read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-philosophers-stone/)
- [How long to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-order-of-the-phoenix/)
- [How long to read The Hobbit?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-hobbit/)
- [How long to read the Bible?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/the-bible/)
- [How long to read War and Peace?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/war-and-peace/)
- [How long to read Infinite Jest?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/infinite-jest/)
- [How long to read Ulysses?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/ulysses/)
- [How long to read Dune?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/dune/)
- [How long to read the Harry Potter series?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/harry-potter-series/)
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## Sources

- Calculated on this page — At One Place (/about/)