Liminanotio

Home/Books/Foundational Texts & Documents

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith

The Wealth of Nations is 382,300 words — about 25h 29m at 250 words per minute, across 27 chapters. Measure your own speed and read it free, here.

How long does it take to read The Wealth of Nations?

25h 29m at 250 words per minute

382,300 words · 27 chapters · counted from the full text, not estimated from a page count. Measure your own speed and this becomes your number.

Public domain 27 chapters Tap-to-define
Read The Wealth of Nations
Cover of The Wealth of Nations

How it opens

The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.…

Details

  • AuthorAdam Smith
  • SourceProject Gutenberg #3300
  • Length382,300 words · 25h 29m of reading
  • Chapters27
  • DictionaryIncluded
  • CopyrightPublic domain in the United States
  • Source checked2026-08-03

Contents

27 chapters

Recovered from the original source text, so you can open the book at any of them.

  1. 01CHAPTER I. OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.
  2. 02CHAPTER IV. OF THE ORIGIN AND USE OF MONEY.
  3. 03CHAPTER VI. OF THE COMPONENT PART OF THE PRICE OF COMMODITIES.
  4. 04CHAPTER VII. OF THE NATURAL AND MARKET PRICE OF COMMODITIES.
  5. 05CHAPTER VIII. OF THE WAGES OF LABOUR.
  6. 06CHAPTER IX. OF THE PROFITS OF STOCK.
  7. 07PART I. Inequalities arising from the nature of the employments themselves.
  8. 08PART II.—Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe.
  9. 09CHAPTER XI. OF THE RENT OF LAND.
  10. 10PART I.—Of the Produce of Land which always affords Rent.
  11. 11PART II.—Of the Produce of Land, which sometimes does, and sometimes does not, afford Rent.
  12. 12# PRICES OF WHEAT
  13. 13BOOK II. OF THE NATURE, ACCUMULATION, AND EMPLOYMENT OF STOCK.
  14. 14CHAPTER I. OF THE DIVISION OF STOCK.
  15. 15CHAPTER IV. OF STOCK LENT AT INTEREST.
  16. 16CHAPTER V. OF THE DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS OF CAPITALS.
  17. 17CHAPTER I. OF THE NATURAL PROGRESS OF OPULENCE.
  18. 18BOOK IV. OF SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
  19. 19Part I—Of the Unreasonableness of those Restraints, even upon the Principles of the Commercial System.
  20. 20PART II.—Of the Unreasonableness of those extraordinary Restraints, upon other Principles.
  21. 21CHAPTER IV. OF DRAWBACKS.
  22. 22CHAPTER V. OF BOUNTIES.
  23. 23CHAPTER VI. OF TREATIES OF COMMERCE.
  24. 24PART I. Of the Motives for Establishing New Colonies.
  25. 25PART II. Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies.
  26. 26CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION OF THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM.
  27. 27APPENDIX TO BOOK IV

More from Foundational Texts & Documents

On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin
10h 21m

The Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson
7 min

The Federalist Papers

Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison
12h 45m

The Wealth of Nations is free to read on Liminanotio, a word-at-a-time speed reader that runs in your browser, alongside the rest of the public-domain library.