READING TIME · F. SCOTT FITZGERALD · 1925
How long does it take to read The Great Gatsby?
At an average reading speed, about 3 hours 5 minutes. The Great Gatsby is 48,447 words long, in nine chapters.
- WORDS
- 48,447
- CHAPTERS
- 9
- READING LEVEL
- About grade 6 (Flesch–Kincaid)
Reading time at different speeds
| Reader | Speed | Whole book |
|---|---|---|
| Unhurried | 200 words a minute | 4 h |
| Average adult reader | 260 words a minute | 3 h 5 min |
| Quick reader | 320 words a minute | 2 h 30 min |
To finish it at a steady pace:
- 20 minutes a day: about 10 days
- 30 minutes a day: about 7 days
- 60 minutes a day: about 4 days
How many chapters are in The Great Gatsby?
The Great Gatsby has 9 chapters. The longest is Chapter 7 (8,810 words, 34 min); the shortest is Chapter 6 (4,058 words, 16 min). The average chapter takes 21 min.
Reading times below are at 260 words a minute.
| Chapter | Words | Reading time | Practice in Parlor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chapter 1 | 5,946 | 23 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 2 | 4,297 | 17 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 3 | 5,768 | 22 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 4 | 5,487 | 21 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 5 | 4,252 | 16 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 6 | 4,058 | 16 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 7 | 8,810 | 34 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 8 | 4,570 | 18 min | Check it → |
| Chapter 9 | 5,259 | 20 min | Check it → |
Studying it for class? The The Great Gatsby study guide has discussion questions for each chapter, passages to look at and a worked close reading.
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 Great Gatsby 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 Great Gatsby, Project Gutenberg eBook #64317, 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 (13.9 words) and word length. It measures how long the sentences and words are, not how hard the ideas are.
Similar length
- The Invisible Man 3 h 5 min
- Peter Pan 3 h
- The Red Badge of Courage 3 h
- A Study in Scarlet 2 h 45 min