General information

General conventions

The texts in the corpus are generally named after their author. Different authors with the same surname are distinguished by appending Arabic numerals to the shared surname (for instance, "turner1", "turner2", "turner3"). Works by authors whose names are not known are either named for some salient feature of the text, such as the profession of the author ("midshipman", "officer") or the title of the work ("erv", "grafting", "statutes"), or they are named "anon1", "anon2", etc.

The filenames for the texts also include the year of composition or publication. Texts that span several years within a decade contain "x" instead of a last digit. Texts from separate decades are generally given their own files. For instance, nightingale-188x and nightingale-189x contain Florence Nightingale's letters from the 1880s and 1890s, respectively. However, when the material from a decade is not very extensive, it is subsumed in a file for a contiguous decade. For instance, forster2-191x contains a few letters from 1909.

As noted above, the second edition of the PPCMBE contains more text samples than the first edition. In some cases, the additional samples extend the original sample by a given author; in other cases, the additional samples are by authors not represented in the first edition. In both cases, the filenames for the samples from the first edition contain a trailing "-1"; the samples that have been added to the second edition contain a trailing "-2".

Special cases

The sample of Queen Victoria's private letters from the first edition has been renamed from "victoria-186x" to "victoria-186x-private-letters" in order to explicitly distinguish it from the contemporaneous sample of official letters added in the second edition.

The trial proceedings in frost-1840 were not available in time for the first edition of the PPCMBE. The current sample is divided into two parts. The first (frost-1840-1) is the sample that would have been included in the first edition, had it been available. The second sample (frost-1840-2) augments the first.

Name vs. title

Following the conventions of the Helsinki Corpus, authors are identified by name rather than by title. Sovereigns of England are identified by their given name. For instance, George III and Victoria are identified as "george" and "victoria". Members of the nobility or gentry are identified by their surname. For instance, John William Strutt, third Baron Rayleigh, and Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington, appear in the corpus as "strutt" and "wellesley", even though they are better known as Lord Rayleigh and the Duke of Wellington.

Women's names

The confusing issues regarding women's names that arose in the PPCEME do not arise in the present corpus.

Wordcount information

Wordcounts for the individual text samples, along with date and genre information, are given below. If cut and pasted into a text file, the resulting file can be imported into other applications; the field separator is the space character. The wordcounts exclude punctuation and extralinguistic material such as page numbers or token ID numbers.

Text Date Genre Wordcount
adams-1787-2 1787 SCIENCE_OTHER 8899
albin-1736-1 1736 SCIENCE_OTHER 8825
andrews1-1785-2 1785 HISTORY 8734
andrews2-1796-2 1796 HISTORY 8994
anon1-1711-1 1711 EDUC_TREATISE 6090
anon2-1732-2 1732 EDUC_TREATISE 7235
anon3-1772-2 1772 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 9680
anon4-1791-2 1791 TRAVELOGUE 9986
austen-180x-1 1805-1808 LETTERS_PRIV 9647
austen-1815-2 1815 FICTION 9419
austen-181x-2 1816-1817 LETTERS_PRIV 9778
bain-1878-1 1878 EDUC_TREATISE 9091
baker-1742-2 1742 SCIENCE_OTHER 8823
barclay-1743-1 1743 EDUC_TREATISE 9416
barclay-1743-2 1743 EDUC_TREATISE 1817
bardsley-1807-1 1807 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7680
barton-gresswell-1906-2 1906 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7868
beale-1898-2 1898 EDUC_TREATISE 9073
beddingfield-1763-2 1763 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 8606
bell-1911-2 1911 TRAVELOGUE 10051
bennett-1911-2 1911 DRAMA_COMEDY 9560
benson-1908-1 1908 EDUC_TREATISE 9042
benson-190x-1 1905-1906 DIARY_PRIV 9982
boethja-1897-1 1897 PHILOSOPHY 7935
boethja-1897-2 1897 PHILOSOPHY 15997
boethri-1785-1 1785 PHILOSOPHY 9173
boethri-1785-2 1785 PHILOSOPHY 20642
boswell-1768-2 1768 HISTORY 8751
boswell-1776-1 1776 DIARY_PRIV 9889
boswell-1783-2 1783 DIARY_PRIV 9885
boswell-178x-2 1786-1788 LETTERS_PRIV 9601
boswell-1791-2 1791 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 9781
bracken-1738-2 1738 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9148
bradley1-1905-1 1905 TRAVELOGUE 10285
bradley2-1760-2 1760 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9037
brady-1713-2 1713 SERMON 9015
brightland-1711-1 1711 EDUC_TREATISE 1343
bronte-1848-2 1848 FICTION 9572
brough-1867-2 1867 DRAMA_COMEDY 9664
brougham1-1861-1 1861 DRAMA_COMEDY 10040
brougham2-1825-2 1825 EDUC_TREATISE 9262
burney-1768-2 1768 DIARY_PRIV 9964
burney-1782-2 1782 FICTION 9336
burney-1792-2 1792 DIARY_PRIV 9896
burton1-1762-1 1762 SERMON 9111
burton2-1857-2 1857 TRAVELOGUE 10042
butler-1726-1 1726 SERMON 9090
carlyle-1835-1 1835 LETTERS_PRIV 9342
carlyle-1837-1 1837 HISTORY 8727
carlyle-1858-2 1858 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 9696
centlivre-1723-2 1723 DRAMA_COMEDY 10053
chapman-1774-1 1774 EDUC_TREATISE 9024
cibber-1740-1 1740 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 10041
clarke-1730-2 1730 EDUC_TREATISE 9053
cobbett-1838-2 1838 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9122
coleridge-1825-2 1825 LETTERS_PRIV 9530
collier-1835-1 1835 DRAMA_COMEDY 9448
colman-1805-1 1805 DRAMA_COMEDY 10143
cook1-1776-1 1776 TRAVELOGUE 10165
cook2-1901-2 1901 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9037
cooke1-1712-1 1712 TRAVELOGUE 10019
cooke2-1770-2 1770 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9004
coyne-1855-2 1855 DRAMA_COMEDY 9623
crossfield-1796-2 1796 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 27909
dalton-1808-2 1808 SCIENCE_OTHER 8866
darwin-1835-2 1835 TRAVELOGUE 10079
darwin-1842-2 1842 SCIENCE_OTHER 8870
davy-1814-2 1814 SCIENCE_OTHER 8830
davys-1716-1 1716 DRAMA_COMEDY 10294
decourcy-1776-2 1776 SERMON 9113
defoe-1719-1 1719 FICTION 9368
dickens-1837-1 1837 FICTION 9436
disraeli-1827-2 1827 FICTION 9391
doddridge-1747-1 1747 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 10434
doyle-1905-2 1905 FICTION 9294
drummond-1718-1 1718 HANDBOOK_OTHER 7897
ellis-1851-2 1851 EDUC_TREATISE 9067
erv-new-1881-1 1881 BIBLE 10955
erv-new-1881-2 1881 BIBLE 22999
erv-old-1885-1 1885 BIBLE 10250
erv-old-1885-2 1885 BIBLE 20754
fallowfield-1791-2 1791 HANDBOOK_OTHER 8900
faraday-1859-1 1859 SCIENCE_OTHER 8812
fayrer-1900-1 1900 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 7735
fayrer-1900-2 1900 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 1767
ferguson-1756-2 1756 SCIENCE_OTHER 8875
fielding1-1735-2 1735 DRAMA_COMEDY 10064
fielding1-1749-1 1749 FICTION 9381
fielding1-1754-2 1754 TRAVELOGUE 10037
fielding2-1744-2 1744 FICTION 9324
fleming-1886-1 1886 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9024
forster1-1827-2 1827 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9024
forster2-1910-2 1910 FICTION 9447
forster2-191x-2 1909-1911 LETTERS_PRIV 9402
frost-1840-1 1840 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 27992
frost-1840-2 1840 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 13973
froude-1830-1 1830 SERMON 9241
garrick-1759-2 1759 DRAMA_COMEDY 9139
george-1763-1 1763 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 4932
gibbon-1776-1 1776 HISTORY 8800
gibbon-1789-2 1789 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 7727
gibson-1729-2 1729 HISTORY 8743
gisborne-1802-2 1802 SERMON 9164
gladstone-1873-1 1873 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 11231
godwin-1805-1 1805 FICTION 9329
goldsmith-1766-2 1766 FICTION 9350
goldsmith-1773-1 1773 DRAMA_COMEDY 10377
gordon-1781-2 1781 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 32797
grafting-1780-1 1780 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9127
green-1874-2 1874 HISTORY 8702
greville-1827-2 1827 DIARY_PRIV 9902
greville-1855-2 1855 DIARY_PRIV 9858
grey-1914-2 1914 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 11143
hardy-1874-2 1874 FICTION 9528
hare-183x-2 1835 SERMON 9303
harris-177x-2 1773-1776 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 11032
harris-1797-2 1797 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 11426
haydon-1808-1 1808 DIARY_PRIV 10001
haydon-1842-2 1842 DIARY_PRIV 10210
heber-1815-2 1815 SERMON 8757
herschel-1797-1 1797 SCIENCE_OTHER 9222
hind-1707-1 1707 HISTORY 8790
hobson-173x-2 1730-1735 DIARY_PRIV 9691
hodgkin-1880-2 1880 HISTORY 8749
holcroft-1794-2 1794 FICTION 9366
holmes-letters-1749-1 1749 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 6528
holmes-trial-1749-1 1749 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 20693
hume-1757-2 1757 HISTORY 8769
hume-1776-2 1776 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 2977
hunt-1844-2 1844 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7703
huxley-186x-2 1865-1868 EDUC_TREATISE 9046
huxley-1889-2 1889 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 4117
inchbald-1793-2 1793 DRAMA_COMEDY 9654
innes-1902-2 1902 HISTORY 8688
johnson-1759-2 1759 FICTION 9337
johnson-176x-2 1765-1768 LETTERS_PRIV 9544
johnson-1775-1 1775 LETTERS_PRIV 9508
johnstone-1786-2 1786 DRAMA_COMEDY 9672
justice-1739-2 1739 TRAVELOGUE 10125
keimer-1718-2 1718 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 14938
kimber-1742-1 1742 HISTORY 8826
kinglake-1844-2 1844 TRAVELOGUE 10062
kingsley-1897-2 1897 TRAVELOGUE 10040
kirkland-1774-2 1774 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7698
knox-1786-2 1786 TRAVELOGUE 10037
knyveton-1752-actually-gray-1937-2 1752 DIARY_PRIV 9880
lancaster1-1806-1 1806 EDUC_TREATISE 9200
lancaster2-1794-2 1794 EDUC_TREATISE 7544
lawrence-1908-2 1908 LETTERS_PRIV 9360
layard-1894-2 1894 TRAVELOGUE 10007
layer-1723-2 1723 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 46381
leathes-1913-2 1913 EDUC_TREATISE 9038
lefevre-1843-2 1843 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 7737
liddon-1889-2 1889 SERMON 9056
lind-1753-1 1753 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7721
lingard-1823-2 1823 HISTORY 8721
long-1866-1 1866 HISTORY 8817
loudon-1806-2 1806 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9163
lyell-1830-1 1830 SCIENCE_OTHER 8918
macaulay-1833-2 1833 HISTORY 8870
macaulay-1843-2 1843 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 9745
macaulay-1849-2 1849 HISTORY 8718
macquarie-1815-2 1815 TRAVELOGUE 10017
mathews-1875-2 1875 DRAMA_COMEDY 9599
maurice-1857-2 1857 SERMON 9059
maxwell-1747-1 1747 HANDBOOK_OTHER 10255
meredith-188x-2 1885-1886 LETTERS_PRIV 9534
meredith-1895-1 1895 FICTION 9319
midshipman-1767-2 1767 TRAVELOGUE 10015
miles1-1873-2 1873 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9008
miles2-1893-2 1893 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9209
mill-1854-2 1854 LETTERS_PRIV 9621
mill-1871-2 1871 LETTERS_PRIV 9514
montagu-1718-1 1718 LETTERS_PRIV 9322
montefiore-1836-1 1836 TRAVELOGUE 10174
moore-181x-2 1818-1819 DIARY_PRIV 9934
morris-172x-2 1721-1725 DIARY_PRIV 10386
morton-1813-2 1813 DRAMA_COMEDY 9669
newcome-new-1796-1 1796 BIBLE 11027
newcome-new-1796-2 1796 BIBLE 8112
nightingale-1848-2 1848 LETTERS_PRIV 9299
nightingale-188x-1 1888-1889 LETTERS_PRIV 3300
nightingale-189x-1 1890-1897 LETTERS_PRIV 6195
oconnell-1844-2 1844 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 42067
officer-1744-1 1744 TRAVELOGUE 10022
okeeffe-1767-2 1767 DRAMA_COMEDY 8112
okeeffe-1826-1 1826 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 8070
oldmixon-1716-2 1716 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 11891
oman-1895-1 1895 HISTORY 8851
osmer-1759-2 1759 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9071
owen-1813-2 1813 EDUC_TREATISE 9271
owen-1847-2 1847 EDUC_TREATISE 10209
owen-1857-2 1857 BIOGRAPHY_AUTO 9365
palgrave1-185x-2 1857-1861 HISTORY 8774
palgrave2-1863-2 1863 TRAVELOGUE 10012
planche-1827-2 1827 DRAMA_COMEDY 9623
planche-1846-2 1846 DRAMA_COMEDY 9606
poore-1876-1 1876 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7709
pope-172x-2 1723-1725 LETTERS_PRIV 9519
priestley-1765-2 1765 EDUC_TREATISE 9364
priestley-1769-1 1769 SCIENCE_OTHER 8906
purver-new-1764-1 1764 BIBLE 11092
purver-new-1764-2 1764 BIBLE 22519
purver-old-1764-1 1764 BIBLE 9483
purver-old-1764-2 1764 BIBLE 19298
pusey-186x-1 1865-1866 SERMON 9015
pusey-187x-2 1870-1871 SERMON 9100
reade-1863-1 1863 TRAVELOGUE 10362
reeve-1777-1 1777 FICTION 9428
richardson-1858-2 1858 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7774
roberts-1726-2 1726 TRAVELOGUE 10116
robertson-1792-2 1792 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7719
ruskin-1835-1 1835 DIARY_PRIV 9852
ruskin-1882-2 1882 DIARY_PRIV 9943
ryder-1716-1 1716 DIARY_PRIV 9901
salmon-1724-2 1724 HISTORY 8846
shaw-1903-2 1903 DRAMA_COMEDY 9632
sheridan-1756-2 1756 EDUC_TREATISE 10481
skeavington-184x-1 1845 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9131
smollett-175x-2 1755-1759 LETTERS_PRIV 9355
southey-1813-1 1813 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 9797
statutes-171x-1 1715-1716 LAW 11043
statutes-1745-1 1745 LAW 9164
statutes-1775-1 1775 LAW 9179
statutes-1805-1 1805 LAW 9318
statutes-1835-1 1835 LAW 9241
statutes-1865-1 1865 LAW 9242
statutes-1895-1 1895 LAW 9385
stevens-1745-1 1745 DRAMA_COMEDY 9112
st-john-1711-2 1711 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 10270
stokes-1887-2 1887 SCIENCE_OTHER 8912
strutt-1890-1 1890 SCIENCE_OTHER 8793
sturt-1890-2 1890 DIARY_PRIV 10014
sturt-1914-2 1914 DIARY_PRIV 9947
swift-1726-2 1726 FICTION 9370
swift-1735-2 1735 LETTERS_PRIV 9371
talbot-1901-1 1901 SERMON 9135
temple-1914-2 1914 SERMON 9061
thackeray-1855-2 1855 FICTION 9416
thompson-1859-2 1859 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9049
thomson-1862-2 1862 SCIENCE_OTHER 8974
thring-187x-1 1870-1872 DIARY_PRIV 10009
thring-1883-2 1883 EDUC_TREATISE 9153
tindall-1814-1 1814 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9039
townley-1746-1 1746 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 9973
trevelyan-1911-2 1911 HISTORY 8733
trevelyan-1913-2 1913 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 9948
trollope-1879-2 1879 FICTION 9340
trollope-1882-1 1882 BIOGRAPHY_OTHER 9807
turner1-1799-1 1799 HISTORY 8738
turner2-1800-1 1800 TRAVELOGUE 10062
turner3-1722-2 1722 SCIENCE_MEDICINE 7859
turner4-1756-2 1756 DIARY 3366
turner4-1761-2 1761 DIARY 3355
turner4-1765-2 1765 DIARY 3351
victoria-186x-diary-2 1863-1866 DIARY_PRIV 10006
victoria-186x-official-letters-2 1864-1866 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 11101
victoria-186x-private-letters-1 1863-1865 LETTERS_PRIV 9327
walpole-174x-1 1740-1747 LETTERS_PRIV 9608
walpole-179x-2 1790-1795 LETTERS_PRIV 9864
watson-1817-1 1817 PROCEEDINGS_TRIAL 28169
watts-1726-2 1726 SCIENCE_OTHER 8927
weathers-1913-1 1913 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9030
webster-1718-1 1718 EDUC_TREATISE 2328
wellesley-1815-1 1815 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 11107
wesley-174x-1 1744-1745 DIARY_PRIV 9889
wesley-1750-2 1750 SERMON 3620
wesley-1755-2 1755 SERMON 5165
whewell-1837-1 1837 EDUC_TREATISE 9275
white-1784-2 1784 SERMON 9027
whitefield-1737-2 1737 SERMON 9052
wilde-1895-1 1895 DRAMA_COMEDY 9711
william-1832-2 1832 LETTERS_NON-PRIV 11065
wollaston-1793-1 1793 SERMON 9076
wollstonecraft-1787-2 1787 EDUC_TREATISE 9281
wood-1864-2 1864 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9037
wyld-1725-2 1725 HANDBOOK_OTHER 9190
yonge-1865-1 1865 FICTION 9324