# The Return of the Native

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy has 142,451 words.

## At a glance

1878 novel by Thomas Hardy.

- **Author:** [Thomas Hardy](https://musael.com/books/authors/thomas-hardy.md) (1840–1928)
- **First published:** 1878
- **Original language:** English
- **Genre:** romance
- **Readers:** adult

## How long it takes to read

- **Words:** 142,451
- **Reading time:** 9 h 30 min (at 250 words a minute)
- **Listening time:** 15 h 19 min (audiobook pace, 155 words a minute)

| Reading speed | Whole book | At 30 minutes a day |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 wpm | 11 h 52 min | 24 days |
| 250 wpm | 9 h 30 min | 19 days |
| 300 wpm | 7 h 55 min | 16 days |

## Read or listen

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

- Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/thomas-hardy/the-return-of-the-native
- Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/122

## Counted from the text

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

- Words in the text: 142,774
- Chapters: 6
- Dialogue: 39% of the words are inside quotation marks
- Average sentence: 15.3 words

## Where the numbers come from

The word count comes from the sources below.

- https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/thomas-hardy/the-return-of-the-native (word count)
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/122 (word count)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q141568
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_Native
- https://openlibrary.org/works/OL44994W
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/122

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

Source: https://musael.com/books/the-return-of-the-native