Books by level / English books
The Count of Monte Cristo: reading level, length and free edition
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is a novel in English, in English translation. Our team rates it B2. It runs to 463,374 words with 16,272 different word forms, about 39–77 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Standard Ebooks.
- Author
- Alexandre Dumas
- Language
- English
- Level
- B2
- Form
- novel
- Words
- 463,374
- Different word forms
- 16,272
- Forms for 95% / 98%
- 4,828 / 8,686
- Reading time
- 39–77 h
- Free edition
- Standard Ebooks
The Count of Monte Cristo is another of Alexandre Dumas’ thrilling adventure stories, possibly more popular even than The Three Musketeers. Originally serialized in a French newspaper over the course of a year-and-a-half, it was enormously popular after its publication in book form, and has never been out of print since. Its timeless story of adventure, historical drama, romance, revenge, and Eastern mystery has been the source of over forty movies and TV series.
Is The Count of Monte Cristo right for your level?
To recognise 95% of the running words in The Count of Monte Cristo, you need its 4,828 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 8,686. 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 16 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 The Count of Monte Cristo 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.
- francs 327
- abbé 304
- excellency 204
- baroness 134
- baron 111
- murmured 109
- doubtless 98
- major 98
- millions 92
- bowed 92
- notary 92
- procureur 90
- president 87
- sailor 84
- apartment 84
How does it begin?
On the 24th of February, 1815, the lookout at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 463,374 | 77 h | 51 h | 39 h | 31 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:
- Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert: 116,535 words, 5,089 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.