By some estimates, there are around 129,864,880 books in the world. That’s an astonishing number, and as per UNESCO 2.2 million books are published every year.
In recent times this number has been growing significantly as many people can self-publish their books via Amazon KDP publishing or via some other online platforms.
Yet the question remains – what is the longest piece of literature ever written?
We’ve written about a similar topic in our article “Top 5 Longest Books Ever Written,” however this time we’re talking about something completely different.
Namely, we’re trying to find what is the longest piece of literature ever written.
Therefore, standard books are not the only material that qualifies.
So, let’s first define what can be qualified as “Literature”.
Interesting fact: The earliest known form of writing, called cuneiform, emerged in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) around 3500 BCE.
Defining “Literature”
Literature is a broad term that includes a wide range of written works. It is often defined as any written work that has artistic or intellectual value and is meant to be read and appreciated for its literary qualities and interest.
The definition of literature can vary depending on the context in which it is used.
For example, in academic circles, literature often refers specifically to works of fiction and poetry that are considered to be of high artistic merit.
In contrast, more general definitions of literature may include a wider range of written works, such as non-fiction, journalism, and online writings.
So basically, digital storytelling can also be categorized as literature.
Okay, so now that we have a definition and we know what kind of writings can be categorized as literature – we can finally answer the question from the beginning.
Interesting fact: The term "literature" comes from the Latin word "litteratura," which means "writing formed with letters."
The Longest Piece of Literature – The Loud House: Revamped
The current record holder for the longest piece of literature is “The Loud House: Revamped,” a fanfiction work by user Jamesdean5842 on the website FanFiction.net.
Jamesdean5842’s fanfiction is a massive crossover that involves characters from various other television series and movies.
The story, which is based on the Nickelodeon animated series “The Loud House,” is over 35 million words long and has over 2,000 chapters.
It was started on November 6, 2017, and ended on February 20, 2024.
Unbelievable!
Seems like Jamesdean5842 was rather busy for more than 6 years.
So then let’s see more numbers about this looooong literature piece.
Note: You can find the whole piece on FanFiction site.
Number of Words and Other Statistics?
“Loud House: Revamped” has 35,122,100 words! Those 35+ million words are spread across 2328 chapters.
To put this into perspective – the seven books of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter have 1,084,170 words.
So basically The Loud House is 35 times longer than all Harry Potter books combined.
Of course, this online writing is not comparable to Harry Potter if we’re talking about writing techniques or anything similar.
Writing is not on mazing level in The Loud House and it’s not easy to comprehend the whole story.
Nonetheless, it is so huge that it needs to be mentioned and declared the biggest work of literature.
Note: If you're interested in whole animated series you can watch it on Amazon here.
Interesting fact: This fanfiction literature is so long that it would take a person over 1,951 hours to finish the whole story. That means – reading for 81 days nonstop, without sleeping. Or in other words – if you read it for 5.3 hours every day then it would take you one whole year to read this massive piece.
What Do We Know About the Author?
As we’ve mentioned Jamesdean5842 is the author. He started writing this fanfiction in 2017 and has been updating it almost daily since then.
Besides that, there isn’t much info about James anywhere online.
He posted his bio on Deviantart stating:
“My name is James Dean Knudson and I have been on this site for as long as I can remember. I am a huge fan of numerous shows and have a lot of shows that I know and there are many of them and I am also a huge fanfiction writer. I have the largest and I also hold the record for the longest fanfic in the world: Loud House Revamped. But I don’t like to brag. I also have autism and I do a lot of fun things with my art. I specialize in cut and paste and like doing pictures based on my chapters and characters that are from that show and what they do. My list of shows is very long and I use many references in many shows.”
Interesting fact: The FanFiction website uses a 24 integer system so their official counter can’t go beyond the number 16,777,215 and this is the number that stands on the website. The maximum value for a 24-bit integer is 16,777,215 because a 24-bit integer can represent 2^24 (or 16,777,216) different values. In binary representation, a 24-bit integer has 24 binary digits (bits), each of which can be either 0 or 1. Using these 24 bits, you can represent numbers from 0 to (2^24 - 1), which equals 16,777,215.
Conclusion
One would think that the longest piece of literature would be something from historic times or some big saga with hundreds of books or tomes, however, this is not the case.
The longest piece of literature is The Loud House: Revamped.
And while some would not agree that this is literature, we must admit that it is an exceptional work done by one person.
Imagine just how much time he spent writing.
If it would take one person one year to read the whole story (averaging 5 hours per day), well then James obviously spent a whole day every day for 6 years doing nothing but writing this story.
Yes, he did copy and paste many things, but still, this is in some way a work of art.
If nothing, well then at least because of the level of commitment.
It would be interesting to have a chat with James to see what are his thoughts about this work.
So James, if you’re out there give us a ping and we’ll have a chat.
Note: If you’re interested in similar articles, we’d recommend to check out:
- Top 10 Books For Curious Minds
- Best Non-Fiction Books About Multiverse?
- 10 Books That Will Make You Rethink Reality
- 10 Must-Read Books on Alternate History
- Top 5 Books On Thought Experiments
- Top 10 Books To Spark Your Curiosity
- 10 Must-Read Books About Parallel Universes
