READING TIME · ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON · 1886

How long does it take to read Kidnapped?

At an average reading speed, about 5 hours 10 minutes. Kidnapped is 80,001 words long, in 30 chapters.

WORDS: 80,001
CHAPTERS: 30
READING LEVEL: About grade 7 (Flesch–Kincaid)

Reading time at different speeds

Total reading time for Kidnapped at three reading speeds
Reader	Speed	Whole book
Unhurried	200 words a minute	6 h 40 min
Average adult reader	260 words a minute	5 h 10 min
Quick reader	320 words a minute	4 h 10 min

To finish it at a steady pace:

20 minutes a day: about 16 days
30 minutes a day: about 11 days
60 minutes a day: about 6 days

How many chapters are in Kidnapped?

Kidnapped has 30 chapters. The longest is Chapter 26 (3,978 words, 15 min); the shortest is Chapter 30 (1,407 words, 5 min). The average chapter takes 10 min.

Reading times below are at 260 words a minute.

Words and reading time for each chapter of Kidnapped
Chapter	Words	Reading time	Practice in Parlor
Chapter 1	1,736	7 min	Check it →
Chapter 2	1,941	7 min	Check it →
Chapter 3	2,672	10 min	Check it →
Chapter 4	2,987	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 5	2,415	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 6	1,885	7 min	Check it →
Chapter 7	2,717	10 min	Check it →
Chapter 8	1,932	7 min	Check it →
Chapter 9	3,338	13 min	Check it →
Chapter 10	2,560	10 min	Check it →
Chapter 11	1,589	6 min	Check it →
Chapter 12	3,274	13 min	Check it →
Chapter 13	2,145	8 min	Check it →
Chapter 14	3,527	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 15	3,043	12 min	Check it →
Chapter 16	2,784	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 17	2,128	8 min	Check it →
Chapter 18	3,030	12 min	Check it →
Chapter 19	2,401	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 20	3,334	13 min	Check it →
Chapter 21	2,751	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 22	2,952	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 23	3,136	12 min	Check it →
Chapter 24	3,808	15 min	Check it →
Chapter 25	2,533	10 min	Check it →
Chapter 26	3,978	15 min	Check it →
Chapter 27	2,860	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 28	2,744	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 29	2,394	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 30	1,407	5 min	Check it →

READING IT FOR CLASS?

Knowing how long it takes is one thing. Understanding it is another.

Parlor Study is a reading comprehension companion. Read Kidnapped one chapter at a time, then make sure you understood it.

Read a chapter. The full Project Gutenberg text, with highlights, notes and read-aloud.
Explain it in your own words. Challenge me asks about the main idea, what the text suggests without saying, and the turn the chapter hinges on, then checks your answer against the text.
Talk it through, then come back. Discuss stays within the chapters you have reached, so it won’t give away what comes next, and Revisit brings your ideas back later.

Open Kidnapped in Parlor →How Parlor practices reading comprehension

Parlor Study is a web preview for ages 13 and up, available by invitation. Request an invitation. AI feedback can make mistakes; check it against the text.

How these numbers were worked out

Words are counted in Kidnapped, Project Gutenberg eBook #421, the edition Parlor opens, divided into chapters exactly as Parlor shows them. Project Gutenberg’s licence and notes are left out. Other editions may differ slightly.

Reading speeds follow Marc Brysbaert’s review of 190 studies, which found that adults read English silently at about 260 words a minute for fiction and 238 for non-fiction (Journal of Memory and Language, 2019). Older and more difficult books often take longer than their word count suggests.

The reading level is the Flesch–Kincaid grade, worked out from average sentence length (20 words) and word length. It measures how long the sentences and words are, not how hard the ideas are.

Similar length

All reading times →