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.Lee Sigelman is Professor and Chair of Political Science at The George Washington University. His research interests range widely throughout the social sciences, including research methods, mass communication, political behavior, and popular culture. With Ernest Yanarella, he co-editedPolitical Mythology and Popular Fiction, and has published several articles on political themes in popular literature.