Books by level / English books
Madame Bovary: reading level, length and free edition
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is a novel in English. Our team rates it B2. It runs to 116,535 words with 10,498 different word forms, about 9.5–19 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Standard Ebooks.
- Author
- Gustave Flaubert
- Language
- English
- Level
- B2
- Form
- novel
- Words
- 116,535
- Different word forms
- 10,498
- Forms for 95% / 98%
- 5,089 / 8,168
- Reading time
- 9.5–19 h
- Free edition
- Standard Ebooks
A middle-class country wife tries to satisfy her yearnings for a luxurious life by engaging in various affairs.
Is Madame Bovary right for your level?
To recognise 95% of the running words in Madame Bovary, you need its 5,089 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 8,168. The median English B2 book in our table needs 3,747 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is harder than most for its level: number 17 of 19, 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 Madame Bovary 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.
- chemist 77
- druggist 59
- francs 48
- clerk 32
- boots 30
- constantly 29
- shoes 28
- motionless 27
- curé 27
- bills 27
- leaning 26
- vague 26
- senior 25
- gown 24
- velvet 23
How does it begin?
We were in class when the headmaster came in, followed by a “new fellow,” not wearing the school uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk. Those who had been asleep woke up, and everyone rose as if just surprised at his work.
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?
| Words | 100 wpm | 150 wpm | 200 wpm | 250 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 116,535 | 19 h | 13 h | 9.5 h | 8 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.
What to read next at B2
English books at the same level that ask for a similar amount of vocabulary:
- The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas: 463,374 words, 4,828 forms for 95%
- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley: 78,010 words, 3,747 forms for 95%
- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald: 48,659 words, 3,508 forms for 95%
- Dracula, Bram Stoker: 161,387 words, 3,383 forms for 95%
- Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky: 204,644 words, 3,349 forms for 95%
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen: 122,164 words, 2,425 forms for 95%
See also all English books by level and books at B2 in all five languages.