Oscar Wilde · 1854
5–8 unknown words per 100 at CET-4 level. Looking each one up will stall you; this one wants glosses that appear in place.
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 147 of them.
CET-6 and up, or read it with glosses. 16,333 words in total; at 150 words a minute for a non-native reader, about 1 h 49 min to finish. Average sentence length 15.7 words. Reaching 95% coverage on this book (the floor for readability) takes roughly 12,250 word families.
The opening of The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, 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.
HIGH above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.
He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a weathercock,” remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; “only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.
“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. “The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.”
👆 Tap any word to try it
The numbers above are computed, but we haven't cut The Happy Prince, and Other Tales into passages yet.
If you have the ebook, upload it — ready in a few minutes, same three-minute passages, same tap-a-word glosses. Free, no card needed.
These are already built, and closest in difficulty to The Happy Prince, and Other Tales.
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.