This presentation shows 6 great american literary works sorted by vocabulary difficulty.

1. 6 Great American Literary Works
Sorted by Vocabulary Level
from Easy to Difficult
By mackayst

2. Vocabulary level 7000
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The Wonderful World of Oz, L. Frank Baum
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was
a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the
lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wizard_title_page.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baum_1911.jpg

3. Vocabulary level 7000
This number denotes that
99% of the vocabulary
used in the book is
covered by top 7000
frequently used words.
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The Wonderful World of Oz, L. Frank Baum
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was
a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the
lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wizard_title_page.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baum_1911.jpg

4. Vocabulary level 8000
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The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/209
The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark
that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially
be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only
case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turn_of_the_Screw
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Two_Magics.djvu&page=7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_James.jpg

5. Vocabulary level 9000
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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76
YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr.
Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched,
but mainly he told the truth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry_finn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Huckleberry-finn-with-rabbit.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Twain_Sarony.jpg

6. Vocabulary level 10000
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Walden, Henry David Thoreau
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/205
When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a
mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in
Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there
two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Walden_Thoreau.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg

7. Vocabulary level 11000
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The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33
It is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside,
and to my personal friends—an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession
of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favoured the reader—
inexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could
imagine—with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_letter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Title_page_for_The_Scarlet_Letter.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nathaniel_Hawthorne_by_Brady,_1860-65.jpg

8. Vocabulary level 12000
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Moby Dick; or , the Whale, Herman Melville
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2701
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no
money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail
about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen
and regulating the circulation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_dick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moby-Dick_FE_title_page.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Herman_Melville.jpg

9. Reference
• Vocabulary level
– Gutenberg Readability Search / Vocabulary Level Test
http://readability.mackayst.com/