READING TIME · JACK LONDON · 1903
How long does it take to read The Call of the Wild?
At an average reading speed, about 2 hours. The Call of the Wild is 31,760 words long, in 7 chapters.
- WORDS
- 31,760
- CHAPTERS
- 7
- READING LEVEL
- About grade 7 (Flesch–Kincaid)
Reading time at different speeds
| Reader | Speed | Whole book |
|---|---|---|
| Unhurried | 200 words a minute | 2 h 40 min |
| Average adult reader | 260 words a minute | 2 h |
| Quick reader | 320 words a minute | 1 h 40 min |
To finish it at a steady pace:
- 20 minutes a day: about 7 days
- 30 minutes a day: about 5 days
- 60 minutes a day: about 3 days
How many chapters are in The Call of the Wild?
The Call of the Wild has 7 chapters. The longest is Chapter 7: The Sounding of the Call (6,242 words, 24 min); the shortest is Chapter 4: Who Has Won to Mastership (3,220 words, 12 min). The average chapter takes 17 min.
Reading times below are at 260 words a minute.
| Chapter | Words | Reading time | Practice in Parlor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter 1: Into the Primitive | 3,738 | 14 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 2: The Law of Club and Fang | 3,317 | 13 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 3: The Dominant Primordial Beast | 5,156 | 20 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 4: Who Has Won to Mastership | 3,220 | 12 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 5: The Toil of Trace and Trail | 5,344 | 21 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 6: For the Love of a Man | 4,743 | 18 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 7: The Sounding of the Call | 6,242 | 24 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 The Call of the Wild 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.
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 The Call of the Wild, Project Gutenberg eBook #215, 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 (18.7 words) and word length. It measures how long the sentences and words are, not how hard the ideas are.
Similar length
- A Christmas Carol 1 h 50 min
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 2 h 20 min
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 1 h 40 min
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 2 h 30 min
Also by Jack London
- The Sea-Wolf 6 h 45 min