How long is it?
768 pages in the Plume 1993 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Historical Fiction · Literary Fiction
Andersonville
CanonicalPulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1956Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 72 / 100High
- Length
- 768 pagesPlume · 1993
- Reading time
- 15 h 15 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Measured
- Emotional intensity
- 5 / 5
About 15 h 15 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 31 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
In Civil War Georgia, plantation owner Ira Claffey watches a Confederate prison camp take shape near his home. Union soldiers arriving at Andersonville face overcrowding, hunger and disease; inside the stockade, mutual aid coexists with theft by a gang of fellow prisoners. Beyond its walls, civilians and medical workers struggle to relieve the suffering, while commandant Henry Wirz attempts to manage the camp.
Reader notes
The historical novel follows fictional and historical figures into extended passages about their earlier lives. Dense shifts in perspective and dialogue often printed without quotation marks demand concentration, while the novel depicts severe violence and the brutal treatment of prisoners.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Atmospheric · Dense · Descriptive
- Tone
- Bleak · Dark · Tense · Unsettling
- Structure
- Braided
- Driven by
- Character · Ideas · Worldbuilding
- Point of view
- Multiple viewpoints
- Setting
- Andersonville prison camp
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 4 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 4 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 2 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Community
- Morality
- Oppression
- Power
- Survival
- War
Content notes
- Violence
- Strong
- Sexual content
- Mild
- Swearing
- Strong
- Substance use
- None
- Abuse
- Strong
- Self-harm or suicide
- None
Standing and awards
Canonical
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1956
- National Book Award finalist, 1956
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Plume · 1993 · Paperback. ISBN 9780452269569.
How long does it take to read Andersonville?
About 15 hours 15 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 768-page Plume edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
MacKinlay Kantor
MacKinlay Kantor was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter whose fiction ranged from pulp crime and mystery stories to large historical narratives, with the Civil War a recurring subject. His work often combines reportorial attention to testimony and physical conditions with crowded casts and shifting viewpoints. Andersonville is the clearest example. Drawing substantially on prisoner memoirs, it moves among Union captives, guards, medical workers, civilians, and plantation owners at the Confederate prison camp. Starvation, disease, and predation supply its pressure, while the broad structure resists making any single character the representative witness. Kantor uses that scale to trace institutional brutality and the choices made under extreme scarcity.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Plume
- Publication year
- 1993
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 768
- ISBN
- 9780452269569
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 1955
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Historical Fiction · Literary Fiction · Historical fiction · War fiction
- Editions
- 16
- Languages
- 2 (English, Spanish)
The catalog does not yet include a matching edition. Details may differ between editions.