READING TIME · JULES VERNE · 1870

How long does it take to read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas?

At an average reading speed, about 9 hours 5 minutes. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is 142,349 words long, in 47 chapters in two parts.

WORDS: 142,349
CHAPTERS: 47
READING LEVEL: About grade 8 (Flesch–Kincaid)

Reading time at different speeds

Total reading time for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas at three reading speeds
Reader	Speed	Whole book
Unhurried	200 words a minute	11 h 50 min
Average adult reader	260 words a minute	9 h 5 min
Quick reader	320 words a minute	7 h 25 min

To finish it at a steady pace:

20 minutes a day: about 28 days
30 minutes a day: about 19 days
60 minutes a day: about 10 days

How many chapters are in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas?

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas has 47 chapters in two parts. The numbering starts again in each part. The longest is Part 2, Chapter 14 (4,490 words, 17 min); the shortest is Part 2, Chapter 23 (460 words, 2 min). The average chapter takes 12 min. Parlor opens F. P. Walter’s English translation.

Reading times below are at 260 words a minute.

Part 1
Chapter	Words	Reading time	Practice in Parlor
Chapter 1	2,312	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 2	2,020	8 min	Check it →
Chapter 3	1,833	7 min	Check it →
Chapter 4	2,354	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 5	2,150	8 min	Check it →
Chapter 6	2,778	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 7	2,463	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 8	2,752	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 9	2,401	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 10	3,116	12 min	Check it →
Chapter 11	2,666	10 min	Check it →
Chapter 12	2,292	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 13	2,341	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 14	3,782	15 min	Check it →
Chapter 15	2,708	10 min	Check it →
Chapter 16	2,232	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 17	2,463	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 18	2,825	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 19	3,491	13 min	Check it →
Chapter 20	2,873	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 21	3,736	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 22	3,631	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 23	2,964	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 24	2,840	11 min	Check it →

Part 2
Chapter	Words	Reading time	Practice in Parlor
Chapter 1	3,550	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 2	3,197	12 min	Check it →
Chapter 3	4,024	15 min	Check it →
Chapter 4	4,349	17 min	Check it →
Chapter 5	2,977	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 6	3,705	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 7	3,445	13 min	Check it →
Chapter 8	3,697	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 9	3,592	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 10	3,736	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 11	3,216	12 min	Check it →
Chapter 12	3,765	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 13	3,963	15 min	Check it →
Chapter 14	4,490	17 min	Check it →
Chapter 15	2,552	10 min	Check it →
Chapter 16	3,489	13 min	Check it →
Chapter 17	3,437	13 min	Check it →
Chapter 18	3,553	14 min	Check it →
Chapter 19	3,896	15 min	Check it →
Chapter 20	2,769	11 min	Check it →
Chapter 21	3,023	12 min	Check it →
Chapter 22	2,441	9 min	Check it →
Chapter 23	460	2 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 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas 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 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas 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 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Project Gutenberg eBook #2488, 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 (15.1 words) and word length. It measures how long the sentences and words are, not how hard the ideas are.

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