I checked out the 1999 Ace hardcover version of Dune from my library. It has 528 pages. I see on wikipedia it says Dune has over 800 pages, so is thing abridged, or is there even such a thing as Dune abridged? Basically, do I have the whole book, or not?
The original 1965 paperback publication of Dune has, according to ISFDB, 541+ pages. I think the “plus” may mean the maps and/or appendices.
This is the version I first read, and five hundred some pages sounds about right. The book was not as thick as M.M. Kaye’s paperback of The Far Pavilions, which clocked in at over 800 pages.
https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?439899
I suspect edition Wikipedia referred to might be a later one with bigger print or something.
There is a discussion on this subject from a couple of years ago on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/pghols/the_dune_book_length_is_confusing_me/
Your page count is about right. The 800 page count cited might be from a cheaply-produced mass market paperback that is published on very skinny pages and can’t fit as much text on each page, and therefore has more pages overall. If someone was trying to push the idea that “Dune is a big book” they might use the example of the version with the most pages.
The fact that you have a hardcover book suggests you have a nicer copy, with large pages, and the total number of pages doesn’t have to be particularly high to accommodate the entire story.
My book club edition (only date, 1965) is 24 pages of terminology, 483 pages of story, and 23 more of maps and appendices.
The Ace paperback that Amazon is currently selling is 884 pages, including 3 appendices, maps, a glossary, and an afterward by Brian Herbert. It’s exactly the same text as my old paperback from the 80s, which probably clocked in at 500+ pages.
Exactly- the page count is wholly dependent on the size of the type, the size of the page, the margins, and so forth.