The Sound and the Fury

At a glance

Author

William Faulkner1897–1962

Genre

Literary fiction

Readers

Adult

Length

Long80,000 to 120,000 words

Readers' rating

3.8 out of 5from 330 ratings on Hardcover

How long it takes to read

About 6 h 26 min at 250 words a minute, or 10 h 23 min as an audiobook.

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. 4Guards! Guards!Terry Pratchett97,182Compare
5. 5The Scorch TrialsJames Dashner96,869Compare
6. 6The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner96,592
7. 7Never Let Me GoKazuo Ishiguro96,374Compare
8. 8Ann VeronicaH. G. Wells96,161Compare
9. 9Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneJ. K. Rowling76,944Compare
10. 10The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald47,094Compare

Counted from the text

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

Words in the text

96,787

Dialogue

33%of the words are inside quotation marks

Average sentence

10.1 words

Vocabulary

361 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.

• standardebooks.orgword count
• gutenberg.orgword count
• openlibrary.orgcover and record
• hardcover.appreaders' rating

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