How many novelists wrote in English in the nineteenth century?
I'll also settle for the number of novels published in English
in the nineteenth century.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 09 Feb 2004 17:09 PST

A WorldCat search of fiction books in English published between
1800-1900, and containing the word "novel" as a keyword, returned
15,373 results which, at the very least, are not terribly inconsistent
with the numbers that the inestimable pinkfreud unearthed.

Many books are listed in WorldCat more than once (each edition is
listed separately), so that the number does not represent 15,373
distinct works.  On the other hand, I'm sure many of the pubished
works of the 19th century didn't make it into the WorldCat catalogue
-- perhaps the overcount and undercount cancel each other out!

Anyway, here are the first ten listings, more or less in order of
popularity -- note the heavy emphasis of works published in the
1890's:

Trilby,
a novel, 
Author: Du Maurier, George, 1834-1896.
Publication: New York, Harper & brothers, 1894

The awkward age,
a novel. 
Author: James, Henry, 1843-1916.
Publication: New York and London, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1899

With fire and sword.
An historical novel of Poland and Russia. 
Author: Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 1846-1916.; Curtin, Jeremiah,
Publication: Boston, Little, Brown & Co. 1898

The world of chance :
a novel / 
Author: Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920.
Publication: New York : Harper, 1893

Bricks without straw;
a novel, 
Author: Tourgée, Albion Winegar, 1838-1905.
Publication: New York, Fords, Howard, & Hulbert; [etc., etc., 1880
Ragged lady :
a novel / 
Author: Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920.; Keller, Arthur Ignatius,
Publication: New York : Harper & Brothers, 1899

The market-place
[a novel] 
Author: Frederic, Harold, 1856-1898.
Publication: New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company 1899
Resurrection,
a novel, 
Author: Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910.
Publication: New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1899

The story of a play;
a novel, 
Author: Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920.
Publication: New York, London, Harper & Brothers, 1898


Pan Michael :
an historical novel of Poland, the Ukraine, and Turkey : a sequel to
"With fire and sword" and "The deluge" /
Author: Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 1846-1916.; Curtin, Jeremiah,
Publication: Boston : Little, Brown, and Co., 1898

==========

I hope this information is of some use to you, even though it doesn't
zero in on the data you were looking for.  Perhaps another researcher
will figure out a way to tickle the numbers to make them work for you.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by bugbear-ga on 17 Feb 2004 12:20 PST

If there were some reliable way to estimate duplications,
that would get us a decent number...

This is a tough one. Here are figures that might be of some use:

"In response to the increased popularity of reading, publishers began
producing more books and larger editions of each book. In Great
Britain there were 1,000 titles published circa 1830, 3,000 circa
1870, and 6,000 circa 1880."

http://www.ailurodrome.com/tbook.html

On a related topic, Manchester University (UK) has placed *every* book
published in English between 1453 and 1800 online.

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/stories/Detail_LinkStory=81813.html

hlabadie-ga