A Room with a View vs The Wings of the Dove: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Young women in fiction, Young women, Travel, Historical Fiction, Romance, Fiction
A Room with a View
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Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional…
The Wings of the Dove
“SHE waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him.”
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Beautiful Kate Croy may have been left penniless by her relatives, but her bold, ambitious nature ensures she will not succumb meekly to a life of poverty. If the financial circumstances of Merton Densher, the man she…
Side by side
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- A Room with a View is the quickest read — about 3 hours vs 8 for The Wings of the Dove.
- A Room with a View has the widest readership — 208001 ratings behind its score.
- The Wings of the Dove reaches further in scholarship and criticism — cited 4 times.
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How to choose
Scores by source
| A Room with a View | The Wings of the Dove | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 3.9 (208001) | 3.8 (17746) |
| Hardcover | 3.6 (212) | 3.2 (8) |
| Apple Books | 4.0 (60) | 3.5 (6) |
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Reception
| A Room with a View | The Wings of the Dove | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 208001 | 17746 |
| Editions | 755 | 60 |
| Citations | 1 | 4 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 248660 | 31731 |
| Reading it now | 10212 | 802 |
| Written reviews | 11868 | 893 |
| Wikipedia attention | 10623 | 3111 |
| Pages | 196 | 457 |
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Questions readers ask
Which is rated higher: A Room with a View or The Wings of the Dove?
A Room with a View has the higher combined reader rating across sources (A Room with a View 3.9/5, The Wings of the Dove 3.8/5).
Which is shorter to read: A Room with a View or The Wings of the Dove?
A Room with a View is the quickest read. Estimated at 225 words per minute: A Room with a View (196 pages, ≈ 3 h 38 m); The Wings of the Dove (457 pages, ≈ 8 h 28 m).
Which is harder to read: A Room with a View or The Wings of the Dove?
Estimated difficulty, based on era, reader shelves and length — A Room with a View: Challenging; The Wings of the Dove: Challenging.
Have both books been made into films?
A Room with a View: 4 film adaptations; The Wings of the Dove: 3 film adaptations.