Tangling and Untangling the Trollopes: A Stylometric Analysis of Frances Milton Trollope, Frances Eleanor Trollope, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, and Charles Dickens

Abstract

Abstract:This paper uses stylometry—computational analysis of writing style—to explore how the Trollope family's personal and professional interactions with one another may have influenced their writing styles. In particular, works by Frances Milton, Frances Eleanor, Thomas Adolphus, and Anthony (referred to collectively as "the authorial Trollopes"), as well as some works by Charles Dickens, constitute the corpus. Dickens, initially used as a control in the analysis, in actuality emerged either as a potential influence on the authorial Trollopes given his stringent editorial practices, or as being influenced by the Trollopes himself. Working from the underlying assumption that authorial writing style reflects individuality and may change in accordance with interpersonal relationships as well as writerly expectations of genre, this paper shows that the authorial Trollopes' writing styles, while still distinct, are at times remarkably similar to one another. In doing so, this paper highlights the literary and historical value of those less-renowned Trollopes, supporting more extensive study of family members other than Anthony. More broadly, this paper is a concept study to demonstrate the value of stylometry to Victorianists studying textual networks.The software used to conduct this research was the R package "stylo."