Victorians and Numbers: Statistics and Society in Nineteenth Century Britain by Lawrence Goldman

Abstract

teenth century, would five suffice? Would fifty? What about 5,000? In a refreshingly honest metacritical move, Alborn describes his work in the digital archive. When he claims that sermons across Christian denominations followed a formulaic script that portrayed misers as “caricatures” rather than “sympathetic portraits of human beings,” Alborn includes a footnote that outlines his analysis of 335 religious publications (18, 36, fn 13). The notion of objective proof of cultural movements may be a self-defeating endeavor, but Alborn’s dense work in the archive demands that we confront what the digital record makes possible. Most interestingly, Alborn deliberately eschews quantitative analysis to analyze his library. Instead, he uses these texts “to add no end of nuance to the stories” that he discovers (9). He creates this nuance with rapid flight across texts and genres—both a strength and a potential area for critique. The depth of his research creates powerful integrity for his narrative. Yet his readings hurry through these texts, often quoting at length with little to no explication or providing a lengthy plot summary of a play or novel, as though they speak for themselves (115–118, 84). But this critical observation leads to a methodological challenge: If texts need interpretation to fit a narrative, the narrative might have more to say about contemporary methods than about a historical moment. Misers presents an ambitious historiography that straddles the scientific aspirations of distant reading and the hermeneutic dreams of close reading. As is often the case with innovation, Alborn’s work demonstrates the strengths and exposes the shortcomings of both methodologies. The result is a vast, rich archive that builds a foundation for both deeper investigation into particular texts or genres, as well as for a broader discussion of capitalism and culture.