At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837-1901

FAIN: FT-57624-10

Troy J. Bassett
Indiana University, Purdue University at Fort Wayne (Fort Wayne, IN 46805-1445)

At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837-1901 (accessible at http://www.victorianresearch.org/atcl) offers an on-line biographical and bibliographical database of nineteenth-century British fiction. Currently, the database accounts for all 5300 three-volume novels written during the period, and includes entries on over 1700 authors and 140 publishers, and serialization information for over 900 novels. I plan to expand the database beyond three-volume novels to include all Victorian novels, beginning with two- and four-volume novels. However, the database is more than an enumerative bibliography: it enables larger statistical analyses, such as annual rates of production, the sociology of authorship, and the rates of serialization. Answers to these and other questions of book production broaden the context for the understanding of individual authors and texts and their relationship to the larger cultural sphere.