# The Last Man

The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley has 175,315 words.

## At a glance

Novel by Mary Shelley.

- **Author:** [Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley](https://musael.com/books/authors/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley.md) (1797–1851)
- **First published:** 1826
- **Original language:** English
- **Genre:** science fiction
- **Readers:** adult

## How long it takes to read

- **Words:** 175,315
- **Reading time:** 11 h 41 min (at 250 words a minute)
- **Listening time:** 18 h 51 min (audiobook pace, 155 words a minute)

| Reading speed | Whole book | At 30 minutes a day |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 wpm | 14 h 37 min | 30 days |
| 250 wpm | 11 h 41 min | 24 days |
| 300 wpm | 9 h 44 min | 20 days |

## Read or listen

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

- Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/mary-shelley/the-last-man
- Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18247

## Counted from the text

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

- Words in the text: 175,709
- Chapters: 30
- Dialogue: 14% of the words are inside quotation marks
- Average sentence: 25.2 words

## Where the numbers come from

The word count comes from the sources below.

- https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/mary-shelley/the-last-man (word count)
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18247 (word count)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2323961
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man
- https://openlibrary.org/works/OL450124W
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18247

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

Source: https://musael.com/books/the-last-man