Replication Data for: A Counterfactual Canon

The following code and data was used in the research phase of the Cultural Analytics and Modernism/modernity article \"A Counterfactual Canon.\" The article analyzes the relationship between gender and taste at Shakespeare and Company. Using the Shakespeare and Company Project datasets, we discover that the majority of the books in the lending library were by men, and that women were almost twice as likely as men to borrow books by women. We also discover that the female authors with a high ratio of male to female readers are nowcanonical: Agatha Christie, Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Marianne Moore. In contrast, the female authors with the highest ratio of female to male readers are less well-known: Margaret Kennedy, E. M. Delafield, Rebecca West, Elizabethvon Arnim. These two final discoveries are surprising: they suggest that the reading practices of men determined the canon of female authors, and that the reading practices of women might reveal a counterfactual canon. We consider how this counterfactual canon of female authors might influence future work in literary history.

以下代码与数据集被用于《反事实经典》（"A Counterfactual Canon"）一文的研究阶段，该文刊载于《文化分析与现代主义/现代性》（Cultural Analytics and Modernism/modernity）。本文剖析了莎士比亚书店（Shakespeare and Company）中性别与阅读品味的关联。借助莎士比亚书店项目（Shakespeare and Company Project）数据集，我们发现该外借图书馆的馆藏图书绝大多数出自男性作者之手，且女性借阅女性作者作品的概率几乎为男性的两倍。我们还发现，男性读者与女性读者借阅比偏高的女性作者如今已跻身经典作家之列：阿加莎·克里斯蒂（Agatha Christie）、艾米莉·狄金森（Emily Dickinson）、格特鲁德·斯泰因（Gertrude Stein）、玛丽安娜·穆尔（Marianne Moore）。与之相对，女性读者与男性读者借阅比最高的女性作者则相对鲜为人知：玛格丽特·肯尼迪（Margaret Kennedy）、E·M·德拉菲尔德（E. M. Delafield）、丽贝卡·韦斯特（Rebecca West）、伊丽莎白·冯·阿尼姆（Elizabeth von Arnim）。这两项核心发现颇为令人意外：它们表明男性的阅读实践塑造了女性作家的经典谱系，而女性的阅读实践则可能揭示出一套反事实经典。我们探讨了这套女性作者反事实经典或将如何影响未来的文学史研究。