How long does it take to read Areopagitica?
Areopagitica by John Milton takes about 1 hour 59 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 1 hour 59 minutes
An evening's read
First published 1644. 108 pages, about 29,700 words.
4 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 3 hours 18 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 1 hour 59 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 1 hour 14 minutes |
The page count is the median across 113 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Areopagitica: A speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England is John Milton's famous tract against censorship. Published in 1644, Areopagitica is named after a speech by Isocrates, a fifth century BC Athenian orator. The work is counted as one of the most influential and inspired defenses of the right to freedom of expression in history. It is also a personal issue for Milton who was submitted to censorship himself when he tried to publish his defenses of divorce, radical works for the time that gained no quarter with censors. Distributed as a pamphlet, Milton's powerful arguments against 1643's Licensing Order note that classical Greek and Roman society was never subjected to such censorship, and he uses many classical and biblical references to reinforce his argument.
Subjects: Freedom of the press, Liberty of the press, Education, Miniature books, Nonfiction, Philosophy
