There has always been a dispute over which is the longest novel in English Literature. Different researchers and critics have always taken different names. However, today I bring before you an easy access to whoever is intrigued by the mystery of the longest novel in literature!!
After a lot of research, my work bore fruit for I found a fabulous guide to all the longest novels from around the world.
Who hasn’t heard of Wikipedia? Every internet user, avid or immature, certainly knows what Wikipedia is. And if you do not (:gasp:), please click HERE.
So, as I was telling you, Wikipedia came to my help again. It is there where I found a list of all the longest novels in the world.
Did you know Wikipedia had a whole page dedicated to it? I’m sure you did not so here’s why I am sharing it with you!
Here is an extract from the page:
Like determining the list of tallest buildings, figuring the list of longest novels would yield different results depending on what criteria are used.
While word and character figures are common standard, word and character become interchangeable depending on the language used. In alphabetic writing, several letters are combined to make a syllable, which are combined to make a word. In the Korean language, each letter expresses one syllable, significantly reducing the number of letters needed to express one word. Japanese, borrowing its word roots in part from Chinese, uses a combination of ideographs combined with syllabic symbols for inflection.
To read the complete text please visit- List of longest novels
And for your convenience, here is the list:
1. Madeleine and Georges de Scudéry, Artamène
2. Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu
3. L. Ron Hubbard, Mission Earth
4. Madison Cooper, Sironia, Texas
5. Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time
6. Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
7. Xavier Herbert, Poor Fellow My Country
8. Marguerite Young, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling
9. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
10. Alexandre Dumas, père, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, ou Dix ans plus tard
11. Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
12. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
13. Carl Sandburg, Remembrance Rock
14. Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
15. Marija Jurić Zagorka, Gordana
16. Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities
I hope this was a help….and hey!! Do you not recognize some names out there? Please share your views and I would love to know which one out of them, you’ve read, without even knowing it to be one of the longest texts in history!!
May 21, 2009 at 6:17 PM
None! Ive read none of these. Most dont seem english though. In the list uve given.
Meghna do visit my blog too..im following both ur blogs
http://sonshus.blogspot.com.
On saturday im giving u an award. Please come by and accept it!
May 31, 2009 at 12:03 AM
I've only read number 9!!!
June 2, 2009 at 8:33 AM
@Sonshu - You are right. I haven't read them too. I've visited your blog, which needless to say as all know, is fabulous. Thank you for the award too!
June 2, 2009 at 8:34 AM
Hello- Thank you for dropping by and commenting. Glad to know that you've read atleast one amongst them :)
June 6, 2009 at 4:14 PM
oops..I haven't read any of these.heard about suitable boy,tolstoy and atlus..
very nice post.
very informative.
wishes
June 8, 2009 at 8:12 AM
@man in painting- Thank you. Glad that you liked the post.
August 21, 2009 at 9:04 PM
Hi..
The only novel i know.. but havent read ofcourse is Leo Tolstoy.. War and Peace...
Web hosting indi
October 26, 2010 at 5:53 PM
coryUna de las novelas más extensas en lenguaje occidental, es una que se denomina Soliloquios de J.M.M. Caminero que consta de 15.000 páginas y 11.000.000 de palabras. Vease en internet: "Novelas con más palabras".
November 2, 2010 at 4:23 PM
1º Mark Leach, Marienbad My Love (contiene aproximadamente 17.000.000 palabras)
2º Nigel Tomm, The Blah Story (contiene aproximadamente 11.300.000 palabras).
3º Mohiuddin Nawab, Devta (contiene aproximadamente 11.200.000 palabras escrita en urdu).
4º H. Balzac, La comedia humana (contiene 95 partes más 48 partes inacabadas, contiene aproximadamente 11.000.000 palabras).
5º Henry Darger, The Story of The Vivian Girls, in […] (contiene aproximadamente 11.000.000 de palabras).
6º J.M.M. Caminero, Soliloquios o Enciclopedia Filosofía (15 volúmenes o tomos, 15.000 páginas, contiene aproximadamente 11.000.000 palabras).
7º Robert Jordan completado por Brandon Sanderson, Wheel of Time fantasy series (contiene aproximadamente 3.400.000 palabras).
8º Marija Jurić Zagorka, Gordana (contiene aproximadamente 5.700 páginas, aproximadamente 2.300.000 palabras).
9º Benito Pérez Galdós, Episodios Nacionales (46 tomos, contiene aproximadamente 2.200.000 palabras).
10º Madeleine y Georges de Scudéry, Artamène o El gran Ciro (contiene aproximadamente 2.100.000 palabras).
11º Cevn Maguire, Trial by Tenderness (contiene aproximadamente 2.000.000 palabras)
12º Jules Romains, Los Hombres de Buena Voluntad (contiene aproximadamente 2 millones de palabras).
13º Marcel Proust, En Busca del tiempo perdido (contiene aproximadamente 1.500.000 palabras).
14º Robert Jordan, Rueda del tiempo (14 tomos, contiene aproximadamente 1.500.000 palabras).
15º Asimov, Fundación (contiene aproximadamente 1.450.000 palabras).
16º L. Ron Hubbard, Misión en la tierra (contiene aproximadamente 1.2000.000 palabras).
17º Madison Cooper, Sironia, Texas (contiene aproximadamente 1.100.000 palabras).
18º Neal Stephenson, El Ciclo Barroco (contiene aproximadamente 1.100.000 palabras).
19º J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter (contiene aproximadamente 1.075.000 palabras).
20º Anthony Powell, Una danza para la música del tiempo (series) (contiene aproximadamente 1.000.000 de palabras).
February 21, 2011 at 7:29 AM
I read Les Miserables, and it is m favorite book in the world. The same author also wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and both stories are woven masterfully. Victor Hugo is my favorite author.
June 18, 2011 at 9:41 PM
Come si può accettare nella lista Blah???Si ripete una parola all'infinito. Troppo facile!!!!Perché Wikipedia non accetta Caminero al posto di quel Nigel Tomm? Troppo comodo usare il computer per allungare il brodo, vero Mark Leach? E' una lista falsa quella di Wikipedia.
October 19, 2011 at 12:24 PM
http://blogs.delphiforums.com/skunkville
Now, with 536 chapters, 2,065 pages, thousands of illustrations, and 644,655 words as of October 18, 2011, significantly greater in length than the longest widely read novel (Leo Tolstoy's great War and Peace: 560,000 words in English, 460,000 in the original languages), and now only hours from eclipsing Ayn Rand's controversial, ideological masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged (645.000 words)! You must feel our hot, garlicky proletarian breath on your elitist back now, Ayn baby!! (Actually, I loved her book, except for that 100+ page speech at the end... which I sadly admit I didn't completely read...). When we surpass Ayn, next comes the book on almost every American's home shelf, the three volume, uncompleted Der Mann ohne Eignschaften ('The Man without Qualities': 657,000 words) by Austrian novelist Robert 'the Man' Musil, which he started writing in 1921 and stopped writing when he died in 1942, leaving his family in dire economic straits due to the novel's lack of financial payoff (I've sampled a bit of it, and it is a very intriguing work).
July 26, 2012 at 2:31 AM
http://blogs.delphiforums.com/skunkville
Skunkville has been written entirely since Fall 2010, and currently has 716 bizarre, gripping, ridiculous, heart-warming chapters, 3.045 pages , untold thousands of fittingly weird pictures from Web picture sharing sites, and of course vivid, action-packed, en-grossing text amounting to 900,672 words as of July 25, 2012...NOT COUNTING REPRINTS, OF COURSE!! The Wikipedia entry listing the longest novels ranks and identifies Poor Fellow, My Country by Xavier Herbert as the 3rd longest novel ever at 852,000 words -- Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson (984,870 words) as #2 in wordlength.... and Marcel Proust's marvelous Remembrance of Things Past (1.2 million) #1.
October 3, 2012 at 12:33 AM
Hi, I was just doing some research and stumbled on this page. Your list is backwards. War & Peace is actually 8th, and In Search of Lost Time is first. Thought I'd give you a heads up! Cheers :)
August 9, 2013 at 7:17 AM
Nobody will know this but there is a novel called 'Fallout:Equestria' which has 625,000 words
It's written by Kkhat, a member of the brony fandom (as am I)
It's a fan made novel which was initially released on the Internet and later published
It's a crossover between the Fallout games and My little Pony: Friendship is Magic
February 22, 2016 at 2:49 AM
Read" A suitable boy". Loved it plan to reread it.