# The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers has 108,945 words.

## At a glance

Novel by Robert Erskine Childers.

- **Author:** [Erskine Childers](https://musael.com/books/authors/erskine-childers.md) (1870–1922)
- **First published:** 1903
- **Original language:** English
- **Genre:** thriller
- **Readers:** adult

## How long it takes to read

- **Words:** 108,945
- **Reading time:** 7 h 16 min (at 250 words a minute)
- **Listening time:** 11 h 43 min (audiobook pace, 155 words a minute)

| Reading speed | Whole book | At 30 minutes a day |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 wpm | 9 h 5 min | 19 days |
| 250 wpm | 7 h 16 min | 15 days |
| 300 wpm | 6 h 3 min | 13 days |

## Read or listen

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

- Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/erskine-childers/the-riddle-of-the-sands
- Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2360

## Counted from the text

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

- Words in the text: 109,275
- Chapters: 28
- Dialogue: 31% of the words are inside quotation marks
- Average sentence: 16.6 words

## Where the numbers come from

The word count comes from the sources below.

- https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/erskine-childers/the-riddle-of-the-sands (word count)
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2360 (word count)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1170204
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riddle_of_the_Sands
- https://openlibrary.org/works/OL23797W
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2360

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

Source: https://musael.com/books/the-riddle-of-the-sands