READING TIME · NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE · 1850

How long does it take to read The Scarlet Letter?

At an average reading speed, about 4 hours 25 minutes. The Scarlet Letter is 68,646 words long, in 24 chapters, after an introductory essay, “The Custom-House”.

WORDS: 68,646
CHAPTERS: 24
READING LEVEL: About grade 10 (Flesch–Kincaid)

Reading time at different speeds

Total reading time for The Scarlet Letter at three reading speeds
Reader	Speed	Whole book
Unhurried	200 words a minute	5 h 45 min
Average adult reader	260 words a minute	4 h 25 min
Quick reader	320 words a minute	3 h 35 min

To finish it at a steady pace:

20 minutes a day: about 14 days
30 minutes a day: about 9 days
60 minutes a day: about 5 days

How many chapters are in The Scarlet Letter?

The Scarlet Letter has 24 chapters. The longest is XX. The Minister in a Maze (3,851 words, 15 min); the shortest is I. The Prison Door (488 words, 2 min). The average chapter takes 11 min. Parlor’s text starts at chapter 1, “The Prison Door”, so these times leave out “The Custom-House”, which many classes skip or read separately.

Reading times below are at 260 words a minute.

Words and reading time for each chapter of The Scarlet Letter
Chapter	Words	Reading time	Practice in Parlor
I. The Prison Door	488	2 min	Check it →
II. The Market-Place	3,480	13 min	Check it →
III. The Recognition	3,191	12 min	Check it →
IV. The Interview	2,382	9 min	Check it →
V. Hester at Her Needle	3,477	13 min	Check it →
VI. Pearl	3,458	13 min	Check it →
VII. The Governor’s Hall	2,487	10 min	Check it →
VIII. The Elf-Child and the Minister	3,133	12 min	Check it →
IX. The Leech	3,516	14 min	Check it →
X. The Leech and His Patient	3,328	13 min	Check it →
XI. The Interior of a Heart	2,460	9 min	Check it →
XII. The Minister’s Vigil	3,780	15 min	Check it →
XIII. Another View of Hester	2,956	11 min	Check it →
XIV. Hester and the Physician	2,246	9 min	Check it →
XV. Hester and Pearl	2,281	9 min	Check it →
XVI. A Forest Walk	2,225	9 min	Check it →
XVII. The Pastor and His Parishioner	3,286	13 min	Check it →
XVIII. A Flood of Sunshine	2,152	8 min	Check it →
XIX. The Child at the Brookside	2,419	9 min	Check it →
XX. The Minister in a Maze	3,851	15 min	Check it →
XXI. The New England Holiday	3,138	12 min	Check it →
XXII. The Procession	3,726	14 min	Check it →
XXIII. The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter	3,085	12 min	Check it →
XXIV. Conclusion	2,101	8 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 Scarlet Letter 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 The Scarlet Letter 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 The Scarlet Letter, Project Gutenberg eBook #33, 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 (21.7 words) and word length. It measures how long the sentences and words are, not how hard the ideas are.

Similar length

All reading times →