Cover of The Red Badge of Courage

Stephen Crane1894Historical fiction

The Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane has 46,173 words, about 3 h 5 min of reading.

words
46,173
Reading time
3 h 5 min
Listening time
4 h 58 min

Standard Longer than 13% of the other 735 books here.

Compare with another bookAll books by Stephen Crane

At a glance

Novel by Stephen Crane.

Author
Stephen Crane1871–1900
First published
1894
Original language
English
Readers
Adult
Length
Standard40,000 to 80,000 words
Readers' rating
3.7 out of 5from 30 ratings on Open Library

How long it takes to read

About 3 h 5 min at 250 words a minute, or 4 h 58 min as an audiobook.

Reading speedWhole bookAt 30 minutes a day
Careful200 words a minute3 h 51 min8 days
Average250 words a minute3 h 5 min7 days
Fast300 words a minute2 h 34 min6 days

The Red Badge of Courage

Read or listen

The Red Badge of Courage 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. 6The Lost Princess of OzL. Frank Baum46,355Compare
  7. 7The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyDouglas Adams46,333Compare
  8. 8The Red Badge of CourageStephen Crane46,173
  9. 9The Tombs of AtuanUrsula K. Le Guin45,939Compare
  10. 10Fahrenheit 451Ray Bradbury45,910Compare

Counted from the text

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

Words in the text
46,263
Chapters
24about 1,928 words each
Dialogue
15%of the words are inside quotation marks
Average sentence
12.6 words
Vocabulary
461 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 Red Badge of Courage?

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane has 46,173 words.

How long does it take to read The Red Badge of Courage?

About 3 h 5 min at 250 words a minute, or 4 h 58 min as an audiobook.

How many days to read The Red Badge of Courage at 30 minutes a day?

About 7 days at an average reading speed.

Who wrote The Red Badge of Courage?

The Red Badge of Courage was written by Stephen Crane and first published in 1894.

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