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Stacy Conradt
The Quick 10: The 10 Longest Novels Ever
by Stacy Conradt - May 16, 2008 - 2:29 PM

I’m an avid reader, but suffice it to say none of these epic works are on my priority list at the moment (Bonfire of the Vanities is next in my lineup, in case you were curious).

10 of the Longest Novels Ever Published

1. The Blah Story by Nigel Tomm. 3,277,227 words, which ends up being 7312 pages. And I thought The Stand was long (it’s only 1168 pages).
2. Marienbad My Love by Mark Leach. It is supposedly the world’s longest published novel in English at 2.5 million words. If you have some extra time, you can read it at marienbadmylove.com.
3. Artamène by Madeleine de Scudéry. It was published in ten volumes but considered a single work and contains 2.1 million words. If you’re fluent in French, you can read it at artemene.org.
4. A la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust. No doubt Frank, the number one Proust scholar in America from Little Miss Sunshine would have read this even though it’s 1.5 million words long. The English translation is Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time.
5. Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. I’m sure Tom Cruise has this one memorized since it’s only 1.2 million words.
6. Gordana by Marija Juric Zagorka. Maria Juric, AKA Zagorka, was one of the first popular female writers in Croatia. No word count, but based on its 5200 page count, Gordana makes the list at number six.
7. Sironia, Texas by Madison Cooper. It’s roughly 1.1 million words; 1731 pages. A “little” story about small-town Texas.
8. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. Clarissa explains it all in about 969,000 words. I’m sorry; I know that was a terrible joke. I just couldn’t help myself.
9. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell This one is a little iffy, because it’s sometimes regarded as a novel sequence and not one novel. Like Clarissa, it’s just shy of one million words.
10. Poor Fellow My Country by Xavier Herbert This is the longest Australian novel ever written at 850,000 words.

“What about War and Peace?” you are probably wondering. “What about Les Miserables? Gone With the Wind?” Nah. Those are practically novellas at 560,000 words, 513,000 words and 419,218 words respectively.

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Comments (21)

  1. Here’s my question: are any of those novels even WORTH reading, or were they merely written for the sake of writing something really long? I’d be willing to bet most, if not all, of them are poorly written.

    posted by Craig on 5-16-2008 at 2:39 pm

  2. Yeah dude, especially Proust; what a hack!

    posted by Ira on 5-16-2008 at 3:00 pm

  3. Where does “Ulysses” fall?

    posted by Jenny on 5-16-2008 at 3:42 pm

  4. The Blah book was good, but I’m waiting for the movie.

    posted by Scotty A on 5-16-2008 at 4:42 pm

  5. Just a heads up, I’m pretty sure it’s “artamene.org” instead of “artemene.org”. The latter just heads back here. =)

    posted by Courtney on 5-16-2008 at 5:22 pm

  6. I know it was never published, but I think Henry Darger’s “Adventures Of The Vivian Girls” deserves to top that list (15,000 pages.)

    posted by Joe Maz on 5-16-2008 at 6:58 pm

  7. “No word count, but based on its 5200 page count, Gordana makes the list at number six.”

    What, you’re too lazy to count?

    posted by Jeff Paine on 5-16-2008 at 7:16 pm

  8. Hubbard’s Mission Earth is decent. Some off-beat humor in a sci-fi genre.

    10 books total.

    For a nut-case he was a decent writer.

    His Battlefield Earth is, in my opinion, one of the great modern sci-fi novels.

    posted by Obbop on 5-16-2008 at 7:56 pm

  9. Proust is quite talented, but the rest of these sound like they’re in need of a good (and patient) editor.

    posted by Technical Writing Geek on 5-16-2008 at 9:08 pm

  10. I, for one, loved the Clarissa joke, thats the only thing that name can make me think of.

    posted by Cory Crawford on 5-16-2008 at 9:40 pm

  11. I hardly think Mission Earth counts, since it was published in ten volumes over a period of a couple years. “Battlefield: Earth” was 1066 pages (in paperback), still not in the same league as these others whether counting pages, words, or depth…

    posted by Rich Rubel on 5-16-2008 at 9:43 pm

  12. Bonfire of the Vanities is trash—enjoy!

    posted by redavenger on 5-16-2008 at 9:47 pm

  13. Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan – 11 of 12 books are published and I don’t believe any of the books are less than 500 pages each. Good SF/Fantasy series to sink your teeth into.

    posted by brent on 5-16-2008 at 10:22 pm

  14. I’m in agreement that Mission Earth should not be counted as one novel. It was one long story but published in 10 books the same way the Wheel of Time or many other scifi/fantasy series. It does have a decent story with much social and political commentary. While not a single novel it is an entertaining read.

    posted by Nick on 5-16-2008 at 10:29 pm

  15. Two pages of Richardson would have been excessive. The only reason to read him is to enhance your enjoyment of Fielding’s merciless pwnage in Shamela, Joseph Andrews, and Tom Jones. That list is in descending order, as Fielding gradually realized it was not really worthwhile to drop an anvil on an ant.

    posted by Mitch on 5-17-2008 at 12:25 am

  16. Posted this link in http://www.surfurls.com. its a social bookmarking site.

    posted by jack on 5-17-2008 at 2:08 am

  17. GWTW is only 419K words?

    Wow, my serial novel is longer than that, I think.

    posted by dejah on 5-17-2008 at 8:31 pm

  18. “Atlas Shrugged” has always been the longest book I have ever encountered (but not read…too long), but at 645,000 words it doesn’t make this list either. Whoa!

    posted by Stick on 5-18-2008 at 3:13 am

  19. Each word in Ulysses should be counted at least three times.

    posted by kyle on 5-19-2008 at 12:03 pm

  20. Interesting story. One of the comments suggests that these works were “merely written for the sake of writing something really long.” I can tell you that is not the case for at least two of the works on the list. Waco novelist Madison Cooper made news in 1952 when Time magazine declared his 1.1-million-word Sironia, Texas to be “the longest novel by an American writer ever to be published.” As a Waco-born writer, I was inspired by Cooper throughout the 20-year process of writing “Marienbad My Love,” a 2.5-million-word love story about the end of the world. “Sironia, Texas” was a complex work that Cooper produced in secret over a period of years, keeping it hidden from everyone in town. I grew up hearing stories about how he kept track of the many characters and plots of the novel by writing his notes on a paper window shade. If someone entered the room while he was writing, he’d raise the shade to hide his work. My novel features several tributes to “Sironia, Texas” and Waco. I incorporated a mention of the Waco Horror, an early 20th-century lynching that appears in Cooper’s book; references to a rash of UFO reports in Waco and Central Texas the early 1950s; and the famous Waco tornado in 1953. A recurring element in “Marienbad My Love” is a photography-based time travel machine created by a fictional version of my grandfather, Jewell Poe Rowan, a professional photographer who operated a studio in downtown Waco that was destroyed in the 1953 tornado.

    posted by Mark L. on 5-19-2008 at 12:20 pm

  21. I’ve posted an updated version of “Marienbad My Love” at marienbadmylove.com. The word count is now 10.1 million.

    posted by Mark L. on 5-25-2008 at 9:14 pm

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