Cover of The Castle of Otranto

Horace Walpole1764Gothic fiction

The Castle of Otranto

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole has 36,798 words, about 2 h 27 min of reading.

words
36,798
Reading time
2 h 27 min
Listening time
3 h 57 min

Short Longer than 6% of the other 735 books here.

Compare with another bookAll books by Horace Walpole

At a glance

Novel by Horace Walpole.

Author
Horace Walpole1717–1797
First published
1764
Original language
English
Readers
Adult
Length
Shortunder 40,000 words
Readers' rating
3.0 out of 5from 99 ratings on Hardcover

How long it takes to read

About 2 h 27 min at 250 words a minute, or 3 h 57 min as an audiobook.

Reading speedWhole bookAt 30 minutes a day
Careful200 words a minute3 h 4 min7 days
Average250 words a minute2 h 27 min5 days
Fast300 words a minute2 h 3 min5 days

The Castle of Otranto

Read or listen

The Castle of Otranto is in the public domain: these editions are free to download, read and share.

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. 4Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneJ. K. Rowling76,944Compare
  5. 5The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald47,094Compare
  6. 6KwaidanLafcadio Hearn37,252Compare
  7. 7Daddy-Long-LegsJean Webster36,979Compare
  8. 8The Castle of OtrantoHorace Walpole36,798
  9. 9MessengerLois Lowry36,627Compare
  10. 10The Lion, the Witch and the WardrobeC. S. Lewis36,363Compare

Counted from the text

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

Words in the text
36,829
Chapters
5about 7,366 words each
Dialogue
52%of the words are inside quotation marks
Average sentence
16.7 words
Vocabulary
423 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.

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 The Castle of Otranto?

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole has 36,798 words.

How long does it take to read The Castle of Otranto?

About 2 h 27 min at 250 words a minute, or 3 h 57 min as an audiobook.

How many days to read The Castle of Otranto at 30 minutes a day?

About 5 days at an average reading speed.

Who wrote The Castle of Otranto?

The Castle of Otranto was written by Horace Walpole and first published in 1764.

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.

Start writing