# Father Goriot

Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac has 103,212 words.

## At a glance

1835 novel by Honoré de Balzac.

- **Author:** [Honoré de Balzac](https://musael.com/books/authors/honore-de-balzac.md) (1799–1850)
- **First published:** 1835
- **Original language:** French
- **Genre:** literary fiction
- **Readers:** adult

## How long it takes to read

- **Words:** 103,212
- **Reading time:** 6 h 53 min (at 250 words a minute)
- **Listening time:** 11 h 6 min (audiobook pace, 155 words a minute)

| Reading speed | Whole book | At 30 minutes a day |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 wpm | 8 h 36 min | 18 days |
| 250 wpm | 6 h 53 min | 14 days |
| 300 wpm | 5 h 44 min | 12 days |

## Read or listen

Father Goriot is in the public domain: these editions are free to download, read and share.

- Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/honore-de-balzac/father-goriot/ellen-marriage
- Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1237
- LibriVox audiobook (11 h 44 min): https://librivox.org/father-goriot-by-honore-balzac/

## 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

## Where the numbers come from

The word count comes from the sources below.

- https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/honore-de-balzac/father-goriot/ellen-marriage (word count)
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1237 (word count)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q240617
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A8re_Goriot
- https://openlibrary.org/works/OL40475671W
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1237

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

Source: https://musael.com/books/father-goriot