Literature By The Numbers

The New York Times reports that the titles of every British book published in English in the 19th century (1,681,161, to be exact) are being electronically scoured for key words and phrases that might offer insight into the Victorian mind.

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Ujala Sehgal is an associate editor for The Millions. She works for the New York Civil Liberties Union, the NY Chapter of the ACLU. She was formerly a writer for The Atlantic's news website The Wire, and a co-editor of NY media blog FishbowlNY. Her writing has appeared in The Millions, TheAtlantic.com, Newsday, National Journal, The Rumpus, and elsewhere, and is partly collected at her website, TheCivilWriter.com. Follow @ujalasehgal.