By their (new) words shall ye know them: Edith Wharton,Marion Mainwaring,andThe Buccaneers

Reviewers are sharply divided about the success with which Marion Mainwaring “completed” Edith Wharton's unfinished novelThe Buccaneers. To gauge the “seamlessness” of the fit between Wharton's portion of the novel and the chapters that Mainwaring added, the present study presents a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the ratio of new types (i.e., words that did not appear in previous chapters) to tokens. Analysis of Wharton's classic novelsThe House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, andThe Age of Innocence indicates that the ratio of new types to tokens followed a standard progression in her work. Analysis of Wharton's twenty-nine chapters ofThe Buccaneers indicates that here, too, she was following the same course. However, analysis of the “completed” version ofThe Buccaneers reveals that the substitution of Mainwaring for Wharton as author caused a decisive break from the well established pattern.     

The authorship of Acts I and II of Pericles : a new approach using first words of speeches

In Part I a procedure is devised to identify which first words of speeches discriminate between pairs of dramatists. By treating the plays The Alchemist and The Duchess of Malfi as anonymous but possibly by Chapman, Jonson, Middleton, Shakespeare or Webster, a simulation of the method determines the correct author in each case. In Part II tests confirm general acceptance of Acts III, IV and V of Pericles as Shakespearean and thereby offer additional evidence for the applicability of the method. However, literary scholars are reluctant to ascribe the first two Acts to Shakespeare, many instead preferring Wilkins. Comparisons based on occurrences of first words of speeches support the view that Wilkins is a much better candidate for their authorship than the mature Shakespeare.M. W A. Smith is in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland.