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At a glance
Novel by Elizabeth Gaskell.
- Author
- Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell1810–1865
- First published
- 1855
- Original language
- English
- Genre
- Literary fiction
- Readers
- Adult
- Length
- Very long120,000 to 200,000 words
- Readers' rating
- 4.1 out of 5from 179 ratings on Hardcover
How long it takes to read
About 12 h 8 min at 250 words a minute, or 19 h 35 min as an audiobook.
| Reading speed | Whole book | At 30 minutes a day |
|---|---|---|
| Careful200 words a minute | 15 h 11 min | 31 days |
| Average250 words a minute | 12 h 8 min | 25 days |
| Fast300 words a minute | 10 h 7 min | 21 days |
North and South
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North and South is in the public domain: these editions are free to download, read and share.
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Compared with other books
The books closest in length, and a few well-known ones for scale.
Counted from the text
Automated estimates from the selected Project Gutenberg text; it may include a preface or notes.
- Words in the text
- 182,343
- Chapters
- 52about 3,507 words each
- Dialogue
- 47%of the words are inside quotation marks
- Average sentence
- 15.1 words
- Vocabulary
- 424 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.orgcover and record
- wikidata.orgdescription and author
- hardcover.appreaders' rating
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. Cover from Open Library; the edition shown may differ.
Questions
How many words is North and South?
North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell has 182,124 words.
How long does it take to read North and South?
About 12 h 8 min at 250 words a minute, or 19 h 35 min as an audiobook.
How many days to read North and South at 30 minutes a day?
About 25 days at an average reading speed.
Who wrote North and South?
North and South was written by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell and first published in 1855.
Writing a book of your own?
Musael counts every chapter as you write, keeps the plan beside the draft and checks names and facts across the book.