How long does it take to read The Master and Margarita?
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov takes about 8 hours 3 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours 3 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1966. 439 pages, about 120,725 words.
17 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 13 hours 25 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours 3 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 2 minutes |
The page count is the median across 237 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
The Master and Margarita (Russian: Мастер и Маргарита) is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940. The story concerns a visit by the devil and his entourage to the officially atheist Soviet Union. The devil, manifested as one Professor Woland, challenges the Soviet citizens' beliefs towards religion and condemns their behavior throughout the book. The Master and Margarita combines supernatural elements with satirical dark comedy and Christian philosophy, defying categorization within a single genre. Many critics consider it to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, as well as the foremost of Soviet satires. A censored version, with several chapters cut by editors, was published posthumously in Moscow magazine in 1966–1967 by his widow Elena Bulgakova. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, in Paris. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official censors, and these were incorporated in a 1969 version published in Frankfurt. The novel has since been published in several languages and editions.
Subjects: satire, humor, Politicians, Good and evil, Alienation, atheism
