Beyond Good and Evil: reading level, length and free edition

Name: Beyond Good and Evil
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche is a philosophy in English, in English translation. Our team rates it C1. It runs to 63,710 words with 7,818 different word forms, about 5.5–11 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Standard Ebooks.

By the Readlang Mobile team (an independent app, not affiliated with readlang.com). Updated 31 October 2026.

Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
Language: English
Level: C1
Form: philosophy
Words: 63,710
Different word forms: 7,818
Forms for 95% / 98%: 4,633 / 6,544
Reading time: 5.5–11 h
Free edition: Standard Ebooks

Nietzsche’s philosophical treatise on the ambiguity of traditional morality.

Is Beyond Good and Evil right for your level?

To recognise 95% of the running words in Beyond Good and Evil, you need its 4,633 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 6,544. The median English C1 book in our table needs 4,633 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is typical for its level: number 6 of 11, easiest first.

A word form is any spelling that appears in the text, so “walk” and “walked” count twice, and names count too. These numbers are a guide to how much vocabulary the book asks for, not a test. The level itself was set by hand by our team. Before you commit, read one page of the free edition and count the words you do not know: the one-page test takes two minutes.

Which words should you know before you start?

These are the words that Beyond Good and Evil uses most often but that are not among the 2,000 most common word forms across all 309 English books in our library; the number is how many times each appears. Names of people and places are left out. Learning a handful of them first makes the opening chapters easier.

morality 90
hitherto 66
philosophers 62
philosopher 58
thereby 53
precisely 52
instinct 46
nowadays 44
morals 38
type 35
refined 30
consequently 30
owing 30
namely 29
instincts 28

How does it begin?

The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is already a long story;

From the Standard Ebooks edition, which is in the public domain. If this paragraph already feels slow, try a book one level lower.

How long does it take to read?

Hours to read *Beyond Good and Evil* (63,710 words) at four reading speeds.
Words	100 wpm	150 wpm	200 wpm	250 wpm
63,710	11 h	7 h	5.5 h	4 h

Learners reading a book at their level often manage 100 to 150 words per minute, and readers in their first language 200 to 250. Where these speeds come from, and a calculator for your own: How long does it take to read a book?

Where can you read it for free?

The free edition is from Standard Ebooks, a volunteer project that proofreads and typesets public-domain books. Standard Ebooks releases its editions into the public domain in the United States under CC0 1.0; you can download it as EPUB, Kindle (AZW3) or KEPUB without signing up.

To read it with a translation over every word you tap, open it in Readlang Mobile on iPhone or iPad.