Wright American Fiction 1851-1875

Collection Description

Lyle H. Wright, a librarian at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA, created a bibliography of American fiction from the years 1851-1875, published as American Fiction 1851-1875: A Contribution Toward a Bibliography (San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1957; revised 1965). He listed a total of 2,923 titles in adult fiction, including "novels, novelettes, romances, short stories, tall tales, tract-like tales, allegories, and fictitious biographies and travels, in prose" (from the introduction), and inventoried 18 American libraries for holdings. This compilation is part of his three-volume set listing American fiction from 1774 through 1900, and is still considered the most comprehensive bibliography of American adult fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries.

American fiction was still in its infancy in the years 1851-1875, but this period saw publication of works by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Dean Howells, and Herman Melville. Many of these authors, especially Twain, Harte and Howells, had just begun their writing careers during this period and went on to write their best known work later. However, most of the authors contained in the bibliography are little known. This period, a momentous one in American history, provides the foundation of later American literature, and a searchable electronic collection will allow insight into American literature, culture, and history otherwise unattainable.

The collection from this 25-year period presents a significant opportunity for a cooperative project because of its size and because it dovetails neatly with a number of other large electronic text collections, including Chadwyck-Healey's Early American Fiction, which ends at 1850, and the University of Michigan and Cornell's Making of America, which covers 1850-77 but for the moment excludes fiction.

Project Description

This project has four phases:

  • Phase One: Digitize page images. Each frame from the microfilm set, most of which contain two pages, was digitized by Preservation Resources. This totals almost 400,000 bitonal TIFF image files, or over 750,000 pages. These 9 CIC Libraries contributed to this phase:
    • Indiana University
    • Michigan State University
    • Ohio State University
    • University of Illinois, Chicago
    • University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
    • University of Iowa
    • University of Michigan
    • University of Minnesota
    • University of Wisconsin

  • Phase Two: Convert to Text Files. Each TIFF file is processed by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, from Prime Recognition. This work is conducted at the Digital Library Program offices at Indiana Unversity.

  • Phase Three: Edit and Encode the Text Files. The OCR process is not perfect; there are many errors in the text files that need to be corrected. Three universities have committed to contributing $17,000 per year for 3 years:
    • Indiana University
    • University of Iowa
    • University of Michigan
    In addition, 8 other CIC libraries have contributed:
    • University of Chicago
    • University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
    • Michigan State University
    • University of Minnesota
    • Northwestern University
    • Ohio State University
    • Pennsylvania State University
    • University of Wisconsin

  • Phase Four: Create Search and Display Functionality. Indiana University has licensed the Digital Library Extension Service software from the University of Michigan for this project. A considerable amount of modification was necessary for the demands of this project.

Project Advisory Board

  • Perry Willett, Indiana University, general editor
  • Wes Boomgaarden, Ohio State University
  • Kris Brancolini, Indiana University
  • Martha Brogan, Indiana University
  • Kathleen Kluegel, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • Mark Sandler, University of Michigan
  • Yvonne Schofer, University of Wisconsin
  • Michael Seadle, Michigan State University

Technology

letrs@indiana.edu