At 250 WPM, the typical reader will read this book in 2 hours and 48 minutes (words per minute). "The Odyssey" is a classical epic poem composed at the end of the eighth century BC describing the events after the fall of Troy and the conclusion of the Trojan War. It was written by an unknown poet named Homer. The original text was between eight and ten thousand lines but most copies today are much shorter: about half that length. The "Iliad", which can be considered a kind of prologue to the "Odyssey", is also by Homer and it covers almost exactly the same material as its companion work except that it focuses on events before the war rather than afterwards. In addition, the "Iliad" includes a catalogue of ships used at Troy which does not appear in the "Odyssey". Both poems were probably compiled later from earlier works perhaps even including sections by different authors. There are clear similarities in style and content between the two poems which have led many scholars to believe they were written by the same author over a long period of time. However these theories are mostly based on assumptions rather than hard evidence so they cannot be proven either way. It's difficult to say for certain how long the complete "Odyssey" took to write since we don't have any records of ancient Greek writing techniques or practices.