Alexandre Dumas · 1802
Heavy going at CET-4 level. Not unreadable — just not readable the look-every-word-up way.
Coverage = the share of words in the text you already know. The research gives two lines: 98% before independent fluent reading is realistic, 95% for the instructional level that needs support (Hu & Nation, 2000). Proper nouns are not counted as unknown — recognising that it is a name is enough; this book has 1,489 of them.
Advanced — read it with glosses. 464,889 words in total; at 150 words a minute for a non-native reader, about 51 h 39 min to finish. Average sentence length 17 words. Reaching 95% coverage on this book (the floor for readability) takes roughly 19,250 word families.
The opening of The Count of Monte Cristo, word for word. Tap any word you don't know and its meaning here appears beside it — no sign-up, tap as often as you like.
On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the _Pharaon_ from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.
As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Château d’If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgiou and Rion island.
Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean were covered with spectators; it is always an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the _Pharaon_, has been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocée docks, and belongs to an owner of the city.
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These are already built, and closest in difficulty to The Count of Monte Cristo.
Ordered by unknown words per 100. Lower reads easier; to step up a level, pick a higher number.
Computed by Readii from the public-domain text (updated 2026-10-21), not estimated by hand. The Readii reading level is our own scale, anchored on unknown-word density; it is not the same system as Lexile or AR and does not convert directly. Unknown words are measured against the CET-4 ∪ Gaokao lists, so this is difficulty for a Chinese-speaking learner, not a native-child reading level.