Sister Carrie

At a glance

Author

Theodore Dreiser1871–1945

Genre

Literary fiction

Readers

Adult

Length

Very long120,000 to 200,000 words

Readers' rating

3.7 out of 5from 53 ratings on Hardcover

How long it takes to read

About 10 h 26 min at 250 words a minute, or 16 h 50 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. 3A Tramp AbroadMark Twain156,772Compare
4. 4The Amber SpyglassPhilip Pullman156,664Compare
5. 5Sister CarrieTheodore Dreiser156,562
6. 6The Lost MetalBrandon Sanderson156,381Compare
7. 7Oliver TwistCharles Dickens155,960Compare
8. 8Pride and PrejudiceJane Austen121,970Compare
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

157,084

Chapters

47about 3,342 words each

Dialogue

20%of the words are inside quotation marks

Average sentence

12 words

Vocabulary

427 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
• 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