# Mathilda

Mathilda by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley has 48,019 words.

## At a glance

Novella by Mary Shelley.

- **Author:** [Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley](https://musael.com/books/authors/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley.md) (1797–1851)
- **First published:** 1959
- **Original language:** English
- **Genre:** literary fiction
- **Readers:** adult

## How long it takes to read

- **Words:** 48,019
- **Reading time:** 3 h 12 min (at 250 words a minute)
- **Listening time:** 5 h 10 min (audiobook pace, 155 words a minute)

| Reading speed | Whole book | At 30 minutes a day |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 wpm | 4 h | 9 days |
| 250 wpm | 3 h 12 min | 7 days |
| 300 wpm | 2 h 40 min | 6 days |

## Read or listen

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

- Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15238
- LibriVox audiobook (3 h 57 min): https://librivox.org/mathilda-by-mary-shelley/

## Counted from the text

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

- Words in the text: 48,019
- Chapters: 11
- Dialogue: 19% of the words are inside quotation marks
- Average sentence: 28.9 words

## Where the numbers come from

The word count comes from the sources below.

- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15238 (word count)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3851863
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathilda_%28novella%29
- https://openlibrary.org/works/OL450120W
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15238

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

Source: https://musael.com/books/mathilda