How long does it take to read Typee?
Typee by Herman Melville takes about 6 hours 9 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 6 hours 9 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1840. 335 pages, about 92,125 words.
13 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 10 hours 14 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 9 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 50 minutes |
The page count is the median across 216 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
At one time the most popular of Melville's works, Typee was known as a travelogue that idealized and romanticized a mysterious South Sea island for readers in the ruthless, industrial, "civilized" world of the nineteenth century. But Melville's story of Tommo, the Yankee sailor who enters the flawed Pacific paradise of Nuku Hiva, is also a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author's own Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual. This edition of Typee, which reproduces the definitive text and the complete, never-before-published manuscript reading text, includes invaluable explanatory commentary by John Bryant.
Subjects: Fiction, Indigenous peoples, Sailors, Social life and customs, American Sea stories, Description and travel
