Books by level / English books
The Prince: reading level, length and free edition
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli is a non-fiction in English, in English translation. Our team rates it C1. It runs to 36,421 words with 4,222 different word forms, about 3–6 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Standard Ebooks.
- Author
- Niccolò Machiavelli
- Language
- English
- Level
- C1
- Form
- non-fiction
- Words
- 36,421
- Different word forms
- 4,222
- Forms for 95% / 98%
- 2,401 / 3,494
- Reading time
- 3–6 h
- Free edition
- Standard Ebooks
The Prince is a book that was controversial before it had even been sent to the printer. Written in vernacular Italian instead of Latin, dedicated to a member of one of the most powerful Italian families of the day, and only printed after Machiavelli’s death, this treatise on how to tyrannize effectively was considered shocking even by his contemporaries. The discussion of its morality that continues to this day gives us the modern-day word Machiavellian.
Is The Prince right for your level?
To recognise 95% of the running words in The Prince, you need its 2,401 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 3,494. The median English C1 book in our table needs 4,633 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is easier than most for its level: number 3 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 The Prince 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.
- princes 57
- principalities 28
- principality 26
- difficulties 26
- forces 24
- nobles 24
- ability 23
- armed 23
- reputation 22
- hated 21
- valour 19
- hatred 18
- defend 18
- greatness 17
- examples 16
How does it begin?
No one can say where the bones of Machiavelli rest, but modern Florence has decreed him a stately cenotaph in Santa Croce, by the side of her most famous sons;
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36,421 | 6 h | 4 h | 3 h | 2.5 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 C1
English books at the same level that ask for a similar amount of vocabulary:
- The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith: 427,445 words, 3,061 forms for 95%
- The End of the World, Geoffrey Dennis: 39,220 words, 5,265 forms for 95%
- Meditations, Marcus Aurelius: 49,641 words, 2,198 forms for 95%
- Philosophical Works, René Descartes: 96,801 words, 1,962 forms for 95%
- The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Mahatma Gandhi: 173,864 words, 4,476 forms for 95%
- Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche: 63,710 words, 4,633 forms for 95%
See also all English books by level and books at C1 in all five languages.