WWOSubset

WWO Subset overview

Subset tracking page: complete and detailed information about the progress of names-in-content encoding for the WWO subset identified below.

Basic criteria for the selection of a subset (roughly 30 texts) of the present WWO collection for thorough encoding of names in content:

1. Some portion of the texts should have a meaningful thematic, historical, or contextual connection to one another; this could mean dividing the subset into multiple smaller sets of texts that are related to one another, or speak to each other, in some way
2. Texts should be generally representative of the broad historical period covered by the WWO collection
3. Texts should contain names that are likely to be of interest to scholars who use, or would potentially use, WWO collection
4. Texts should contain a varied set of name types or roles (e.g. not all fictional names, or not all classical names) to permit users to examine how different name roles overlap --- or segregate themselves --- across different genres or historical periods
5. Texts should be of manageable length --- no multi-volume novels!
6. Anything else?

Keeping in mind these criteria, I have searched our current (Sept. 5, 2008) set of published texts for likely candidates and come up with the following list, divided into the three broad categories proposed at our August 5, 2008 meeting:

Sermons, spiritual autobiographies, and religious tracts

Date	Author	Title	Total Pages	Names/Page	Comments
1548	Parr, Katherine	The Lamentation of a Sinner	128	1.7
1641	Chidley, Katharine	Justification of the Independent Churches...	88	5.8
1651	Love, Mary	Love's Name Lives	18	6.6
1654	Trapnel, Anna	The Cry of a Stone	40	6.2
1656	Fell, Margaret	Loving Salutation to the Seed of Abraham	39	7.7
1660	Fell, Margaret	Evident Demonstration to Gods Elect	8	15.8
1660	Biddle, Hester	Warning from the Lord God	23	2.8
1663	Love, Mary	Love's Name Lives	16	7.4	This is virtually the same text as the 1651 edition --- or at least that seems to be the case when it comes to personal names. Including both texts may be unnecessary duplication.
1667	Fell, Margaret	Women's Speaking Justified	20	12
1677	Whitrow, Joan	Work of God in a Dying Maid	48	0.7
1692	Whitrow, Joan	Humble Salutation...to King William	?	?	A large number of the personal names that appear in the text, many of them scriptural, have not been encoded
1694	Whitrow, Joan	Widow Whitrow's Humble Thanksgiving	40	3.8

These texts span roughly the first half of the period represented in the WWO and contain numerous scriptural and historical names (often saints, but sometimes contemporary religious and political figures). Problems with this list include the duplication of individual writers (Fell and Whitrow) and, potentially, their generic heterogeneity --- though I'm inclined to argue that the mixture of personal narrative, political invective, and Biblical exegesis some of these texts contain is a feature of a large percentage of the period's prose writing, and thus isn't really a problem.

Neoclassical and lyric poetry

Date	Author	Title	Total Pages	Names/Page	Comments
1567	Whitney, Isabella	The Copy of a Letter	30		Strictly speaking, neither neoclassical nor lyric...But it contains numerous classical/mythological references
1650	Bradstreet, Anne	The Tenth Muse	222	4.3	Like Whitney, neither neoclassical nor lyric...But Bradstreet's verse is littered with scriptural and classical names/allusions that seem too rich to pass up
1680	Killigrew, Anne	Poems by Mrs. Anne Killigrew	120	1.7
1703	Egerton, Sarah	Poems on Several Occasions	155	3.2
1734	Barber, Mary	Poems on Several Occasions	340	4.6	This may be pushing the upper limits in terms of total pages... But there are tons of contemporary names in it
1740	Dixon, Sarah	Poems on Several Occasions	237	4.1
1750	Jones, Mary	Miscellanies in Prose and Verse	460	4.4	If Barber is pushing the length limit, then this definitely is as well
1773	Wheatley, Philis	Poems on Various Subjects	128	1.9
1790	Francis, Anne	Miscellaneous Poems	278	1.4
1791	Benger, Elizabeth	The Female Geniad	64	5.7
1793	Jones, Anna Maria	Poems of Anna Maria	70	3.3
1801	Owenson, Sydney	Poems	158	1.8
1814	Lickbarrow, Isabella	Poetical Effusions	144	2.6
1824	Robinson, Mary	Poetical Works of the Late Mrs. Mary Robinson	232	5.6
1833	Moise, Penina	Fancy's Sketch Book	161	0.8

These texts span roughly the second half of the WWO period, and contain some scriptural names as well as numerous historical, classical, and mythological names. Note that the "names per page" number is not particularly useful, since personal names that are encoded as part of subscriber lists are inflating those numbers.

Prose "essays" (broadly conceived)

Date	Author	Title	Total Pages	Names/Page	Comments
1589	Anger, Jane	Jane Anger Her Protection for Women	23	3.6
1617	Munda, Constantia	The Worming of a Mad Dog	41	2.2
1673	Makin, Bathsua	An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen	43	6.9
1706	Astell, Mary	Reflections Upon Marriage	118	1.0
1790	Murray, Judith Sargent	On the Equality of the Sexes	8	0.8
1798	Wollestoncraft, Mary	On Poetry, and...the Beauties of Nature	16	0.4
1799	Robinson, Mary	Thoughts on the Condition of Women	108	3.1
1841	Plato, Ann	Essays	109	1.1

"Essay" is an extremely capacious term throughout our period, making it a bit difficult to apply here with any real consistency. I've taken it in a very general sense to mean any relatively short prose text that meditates on, responds to, or advocates a particular political, social, or cultural argument and advances clear argument or set of principles --- or articulates a specific intellectual position --- of its own. Unfortunately, some of the texts that might be richest or most informative in terms of personal names are simply too large to use for this project (I'm thinking specifically of The Female Spectator and The Gleaner).