How many pages is The War of the Worlds?

About 245 pages, though editions of a book this old vary a great deal — which is why its reading time comes from the complete text instead: 60,317 words, about 4 hrs of reading at an average pace.

How long is The War of the Worlds audiobook?

About 6½ hrs, estimated from the 60,000 words at a typical narration pace of 150 words a minute. Real editions vary by narrator, usually by well under an hour.

Find a copy Listen on Audible · ≈6½ hrs

The War of the Worlds

Name: The War of the Worlds
Author: H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells

4 hrsto read

5.8worth it

At your speed≈ 4 hrs

Pages245

Audiobook≈ 6½ hrs

Times shown for 250 words a minute (average)

The complete text runs to 60,317 words, counted word for word. At an average 250 words a minute that is 4 hrs — a day's reading.

Readers on Hardcover rate it 3.74 out of 5, from 1,064 ratings.

Worth-it score 5.8/10 — Worth it for some readers. Readers 5.6 (Hardcover's 3.74★ from 1,064 ratings) + length 0.2 = 5.8. How the score works →

How long does it take to read The War of the Worlds?

The complete text of The War of the Worlds runs to 60,317 words — about 245 pages in the edition we list. How long that takes depends on how fast you read:

Estimated reading time for The War of the Worlds at three reading speeds.
Your pace	Words per minute	Time to finish
Slow	175	5½ hrs
Average	250	4 hrs
Fast	400	2½ hrs

Counted word for word from the complete public-domain text on Project Gutenberg, so these times don't depend on any one edition's page count. Most adults read between 200 and 300 words a minute — set your own pace and every time on the site adjusts. Prefer to listen? At a typical narration pace of 150 words a minute the audiobook runs about 6½ hrs — an estimate from the word count, since narrators vary.

Common questions

How long does it take to read The War of the Worlds?: About 4 hrs at an average reading speed of 250 words per minute. The complete text of The War of the Worlds runs to 60,317 words — so at a slower 175 wpm it is nearer 5½ hrs, and at 400 wpm closer to 2½ hrs.
How many pages is The War of the Worlds?: About 245 pages, though editions of a book this old vary a great deal — which is why its reading time comes from the complete text instead: 60,317 words, about 4 hrs of reading at an average pace.
Is The War of the Worlds worth reading?: We score it 5.8 out of 10 for the time it takes — worth it for some readers. Readers on Hardcover rate it 3.74 out of 5 from 1,064 ratings, which counts for 5.6; at about 4 hrs at an average pace it earns +0.2 for being short.
How long is The War of the Worlds audiobook?: About 6½ hrs, estimated from the 60,000 words at a typical narration pace of 150 words a minute. Real editions vary by narrator, usually by well under an hour.

From the publisher

The War of the Worlds is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and that of his younger brother in London as Earth is invaded by Martians. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories that detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race.…

The novel is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon. The narrator, a philosophically inclined author, struggles to return to his wife while seeing the Martians lay waste to the southern country outside London. Book One also imparts the experience of his brother, also unnamed, who describes events as they deteriorate in the capital, forcing him to escape the Martian onslaught by boarding a paddle steamer near Tilling ham, on the Essex coast.

Imaginary wars and battlesSpace warfareScience Fiction & FantasyFictionDiseasesMartiansInvasionsClassic Literature