This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher. Traditionally, Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus, has been considered the longest novel, but has lately been surpassed by at least one novel, or two depending on the criterion used to determine length. Originally published in ten parts, each part in three volumes, Artamène is generally attributed to Madeleine de Scudéry. Compiling a list of longest novels yields different results depending on whether pages, words or characters are counted. Length of a book is typically associated with its size—specifically page count—leading many to assume the largest and thickest book equates to its length. Word count is a direct way to measure the length of a novel in a manner unaffected by variations of format and page size; however, different languages have words of varying average lengths.
Comparison of methods
There are at least three ways to determine length:
Character count is at the best estimation of spaces, written characters, and punctuation; Guinness World Records uses this criterion.
Word count is another method. Using computer software to count words is the current preferred method for academia and publications. However it is not very meaningful when comparing different languages, for instance because some languages use more words to express a given idea than others. A rough way to count words in an English language text is to assume that a standard formatted page with 12 pt Courier font and double-spaced lines is 250 words.
Due to formatting, the page count is subject to change from font, style, formatting, or paper size of the published work and cannot be considered a reliable measure of length, despite it being the easiest physical indicator of length.
For the purposes of this list, word count is ideal. Page count is a rough indicator of length; for completeness, the page size will be included. A particular difficulty is created when comparing word counts across different writing systems. The logographic Chinese characters used to write East Asian languages each represent one morpheme and are not separated by spaces. The same character may at times stand for one word, and other times form part of a larger word. For instance, the characters Zhong 中 and Guo 国 can be used independently to mean "middle" and "kingdom", respectively, but can also be combined into Zhongguo 中国, "China". One could theoretically construct a noun phrase Zhongguo Zhong Guo 中国中国 meaning "kingdoms in the middle of China". The absence of any formal marking of word boundaries means that it would be difficult to mechanically determine if such a phrase consists of two, three, or four words without knowing Chinese. East Asian bibliographies therefore generally give only the character count without attempting any word count. A rough approximation can sometimes be obtained by citing the word count of a translation into a Latin alphabet language like English, but this will vary to some extent depending on the style of English adopted by the translator. However citing a translation has the advantage that it indicates how many words are required to convey the same meaning in the target text, not how many "words" the source text actually contains.
Definitions
What counts as a novel is another variable. For the purposes of the list, a "novel" is defined as a single work in print or electronic form that has been published through a mainstream publisher and that has acquired publishing rights from authors. A "single work" includes works thought of as one novel by the author but published in multiple volumes for reasons of convenience. Excluded are self-published, printed-on-demand, vanity works, unpublished novels like Henry Darger's, novel sequences like the Chronicles of Barsetshire, novel cycles such as those set in the James Bond universe, and record-grabbing stunts written solely for the title of the longest work.
List
700,000
Other list (non Latin and Cyrillic)
Tokugawa Ieyasu by : The 40 volumes of this historical novel were published serially between 1950 and 1967. The complete text includes more than 10 million Japanese characters. It is the longest Japanese novel and also one of the longest ever written.
The Popular Romance of Chinese Dynasties by Cai Dongfan: Published in 11 volumes and 1080 chapters, this historical novel includes 6 million Chinese characters.
Daibosatsu Toge by : Published in 41 volumes and 1533 chapters, this historical novel includes 5.7 million Japanese characters.
by Sun Haohui: Published in 6 volumes, this historical novel includes 5 million Chinese characters.
On the Plateau by Zhang Wei: Scheduled to include 4.5 million Chinese characters, the ten volume fully published in 2010 and became the longest Chinese novel in prose.
The Swordspeople from Shu Mountains by Huanzhulouzhu: Published in 309 chapters, this Wuxia novel includes 4.1 million Chinese characters.
Li Zicheng by Yao Xueyin: This historical novel completed in 1999 includes 3.4 million Chinese characters. It has been published in 9 volumes over a period of 40 years. It is currently the longest novel published in modern Chinese.
Avakasikal by Vilasini: This book in Malayalam is known as the second longest written in an Indian language. It contains 3,958 pages in four volumes and took 10 years to complete.
The Chinese wuxia novelist Jin Yong wrote a number of long novels, of which the longest are The Deer and the Cauldron and Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils.
