# Far from the Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy has 137,908 words.

## At a glance

1874 novel by Thomas Hardy.

- **Author:** [Thomas Hardy](https://musael.com/books/authors/thomas-hardy.md) (1840–1928)
- **First published:** 1874
- **Original language:** English
- **Genre:** romance
- **Readers:** adult

## How long it takes to read

- **Words:** 137,908
- **Reading time:** 9 h 12 min (at 250 words a minute)
- **Listening time:** 14 h 50 min (audiobook pace, 155 words a minute)

| Reading speed | Whole book | At 30 minutes a day |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 wpm | 11 h 30 min | 23 days |
| 250 wpm | 9 h 12 min | 19 days |
| 300 wpm | 7 h 40 min | 16 days |

## Read or listen

Far from the Madding Crowd is in the public domain: these editions are free to download, read and share.

- Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/thomas-hardy/far-from-the-madding-crowd
- Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/107
- LibriVox audiobook (14 h 40 min): https://librivox.org/far-from-the-madding-crowd-by-thomas-hardy/

## Counted from the text

Automated estimates from the selected Project Gutenberg text; it may include a preface or notes.

- Words in the text: 138,428
- Chapters: 57
- Dialogue: 34% of the words are inside quotation marks
- Average sentence: 16.2 words

## Where the numbers come from

The word count comes from the sources below.

- https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/thomas-hardy/far-from-the-madding-crowd (word count)
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/107 (word count)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5642996
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_from_the_Madding_Crowd
- https://openlibrary.org/works/OL44995W
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/107

Checked on 2026-10-27. Page counts change from edition to edition.

Source: https://musael.com/books/far-from-the-madding-crowd