In a moment of ‘Oh God, what am I doing?’ I googled the word counts of the novels. Here’s what I found:

  • (1837) The Pickwick Papers : Word Count: 318,352
  • (1839) Oliver Twist  : Word Count: 167,543
  •  (1839) Nicholas Nickleby : Word Count: 344,652
  • (1841) The Old Curiosity shop : Word Count: 231,232
  • (1841) Barnaby Rudge : Word Count: 269,476
  • (1843) A Christmas Carol : Word Count: 30,953
  • (1844) Martin Chuzzlewit : Word Count: 375,013
  • (1844) The Chimes : Word Count: 32,386
  • (1845) The Cricket on the Hearth : Word Count: 33,349
  • (1846) The Battle of Life : Word Count: 31,242
  • (1848) Dombey and Son : Word Count: 383,389
  • (1848) The Haunted Man and The Ghost’s Bargain : Word Count 33.990
  • (1850) David Copperfield : Word Count: 382,964
  • (1853) Bleak House : Word Count: 377,076
  • (1854) Hard Times : Word Count: 110,972
  • (1857) Little Dorrit : Word Count: 359,976
  • (1859) A Tale of Two Cities : Word Count 145,480
  • (1861) Great Expectations : Word Count: 195,954
  • (1865) Our Mutual Friend : Word Count: 346,209
  • (1870) The Mystery of Edwin Drood : Word Count: 98,274

That’s over 4,000,000 words to read or, 11,600 a day. That’s before I even get to the short stories or non-fiction. Yeah. This’ll be fun. Off to the kitchen to start Christmas Dinner preparations. Happy Christmas all.