---
title: "How long to read Nineteen Eighty-Four? about 6 hours 14 minute"
description: "Nineteen Eighty-Four takes about 6 hours 14 minutes — about 89,000 words. What that assumes, how it breaks down, and how long at a realistic pace."
url: https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/nineteen-eighty-four/
site: "At One Place"
---

# How long does it take to read Nineteen Eighty-Four?

**How long to read Nineteen Eighty-Four: about 6 hours 14 minutes**

about 89,000 words

Nineteen Eighty-Four is about 89,000 words and takes a little over six hours to read — one determined day. Around 8,000 of those words are "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", the book-within-the-book, which many readers skip and which takes about half an hour. The appendix on Newspeak is written in the past tense, a detail that takes ninety seconds to read and changes the meaning of the entire novel.

## The numbers

- **Total:** 6 hours 14 minutes
- **In hours:** 6.2 hours
- **Non-stop:** 0.3 days without sleeping
- **Covers:** about 89,000 words
- **At a realistic pace:** an hour a night
- **That works out as:** about 7 days

## What this assumes

About 89,000 words at 238 words per minute.

## 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 |
| Moby-Dick | about 15 hours |
| Ulysses | about 19 hours |
| Dune | about 13 hours |
| Pride and Prejudice | about 8 hours 33 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 Nineteen Eighty-Four?

about 6 hours 14 minutes — about 89,000 words.

### What does that assume?

About 89,000 words at 238 words per minute.

### How long at a realistic pace?

an hour a night — about 7 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 Moby-Dick?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/moby-dick/)
- [How long to read Ulysses?](https://atoneplace.net/how-long-to/ulysses/)
- [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/)