Father Goriot

At a glance

1835 novel by Honoré de Balzac.

Author

Honoré de Balzac1799–1850

First published

1835

Original language

French

Genre

Literary fiction

Readers

Adult

Length

Long80,000 to 120,000 words

How long it takes to read

About 6 h 53 min at 250 words a minute, or 11 h 6 min as an audiobook.

Compared with other books

The books closest in length, and a few well-known ones for scale.

1. 1War and PeaceLeo Tolstoy587,287Compare
2. 2The Fellowship of the RingJ. R. R. Tolkien177,227Compare
3. 3Pride and PrejudiceJane Austen121,970Compare
4. 4JingoTerry Pratchett103,743Compare
5. 5Hard TimesCharles Dickens103,360Compare
6. 6Father GoriotHonoré de Balzac103,212
7. 7That Girl MontanaMarah Ellis Ryan103,194Compare
8. 8It Ends with UsColleen Hoover103,029Compare
9. 9Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneJ. K. Rowling76,944Compare
10. 10The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald47,094Compare

Counted from the text

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

Words in the text

103,692

Dialogue

50%of the words are inside quotation marks

Average sentence

15.1 words

Vocabulary

434 different words in every 1,000Distinct words in the sampled text; this does not measure writing quality.

Where the numbers come from

The word count comes from the sources below.

• standardebooks.orgword count
• gutenberg.orgword count
• openlibrary.orgbook record
• wikidata.orgdescription and author

The word count is Standard Ebooks’ count of its edition; the figures under “Counted from the text” are Musael’s own count of the Project Gutenberg text.

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

Questions