Gossip is an integral facet of the social and narrative landscapes of 19th century novels. When two or more characters gather on the page to discuss a third (or additional) character(s), their conversation provides narrative exposition, illustrates the personalities and sentiments of the gossipers themselves (as well as their subjects of discussion), and is frequently a spur to dramatic action. In the humanities and social sciences, gossip has been conceptualised both as a subversive communicative mode and as a socially conservative one; meanwhile, social network analysis research has examined how the act of gossiping affects individuals and groups, and has identified network structures that are characteristic of gossip and its spread through a community. Combining these approaches, this paper utilises the corpus of literary social network analyses that have been prepared by the interdisciplinary Nation, Genre and Gender project, a large-scale survey of 19th century British and Irish novels combining computer science and humanities methodologies. We identify a number of scenes in these novels in which gossip occurs, and utilise these as prototypical social networks in order to investigate how gossip manifests throughout the wider corpus. Our focus is on the identification of theoretical "gossip structures" in the networks, and whether these are associated with particular aspects of the novel, such as its genre, the gender of the author or the attributes of the characters involved.

1. Karen Wade and Siobhán Grayson
Nation, Genre and Gender Project
UCD Humanities Institute, Insight Data Analytics
karen.wade@ucd.ie; siobhan.grayson@ucdconnect.ie
@nggprojectucd
www.nggprojectucd.ie
Supported by the Irish Research Council and Science Federation Ireland
"Her life's solace was visiting and news":
social networks and gossip in nineteenth-century British and Irish
novels

2. [Mrs. Bennet] was a
woman of mean
understanding, little
information, and
uncertain temper. When
she was discontented, she
fancied herself nervous.
The business of her life
was to get her daughters
married; its solace was
visiting and news.
- Pride and Prejudice,
chapter 1

3. The Nation, Genre and Gender Project:
a summary of our data
Project statistics
(October 2016)
• 46 novels by 29 different
authors, published between
1800 and 1922
• 1709 total chapters
• 9,630 total unique
characters
• 5,422,266 total words
A list of completed works can be found at
www.theseaofbooks.com/novels-in-our-collection/

4. Dialogue
Elson, David K., Nicholas Dames, and Kathleen R. McKeown,
‘Extracting Social Networks from Literary Fiction’, in Proceedings of the 48th
Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (presented at
the Association for Computational Linguistics, Uppsala, Sweden, 2010)
Pettit, Mollie, “Star Trek Viz”.
http://www.datascopeanalytics.com/startrekviz/ (2016)
Friendly or hostile relations
Cukier, Jerome, “Events in the Game of Thrones”.
http://www.jeromecukier.net/projects/agot/events.html (2016)
Mac Carron, Pádraig, and Ralph Kenna, ‘Viking Sagas: Six Degrees of
Icelandic Separation - Social Networks from the Viking Era’, Significance, 10
(2013), 12–17 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2013.00704.x>

5. Translating co-occurrences into graphs

6. Guiding principles
Nothing is left to chance in the world of a novel:
– every character, no matter how minor, should be
included, and
– every character mention affects the nature of the
social networks

7. Radical inclusivity
In the process of data gathering, our annotators identify every possible
character for inclusion in the social networks - from
This can result in enormous communities – Pride and Prejudice has a relatively
modest cast, at 117 characters, while Middlemarch’s population is 333, and
Vanity Fair contains over 600 characters.

8. Character data:
Elizabeth Bennet
Aliases
eliza, eliza bennet, elizabeth,
elizabeth bennet, lizzy, miss
elizabeth bennet
Attributes
cousin, daughter, english, female,
sister, wife

9. Interactions in
the novels, by
gender
Male-male
Female-female
Female-male

11. “Netherfield Park is let at last”: gossip in chapter 1 of
Pride and Prejudice

12. Gossip:
A and B discuss absent C
A + B

13. Gossip:
A and B discuss absent C
A + B
C

14. Gossip:
A and B discuss absent C
A + B
C

16. Gossip hotspot chapters
Middlemarch
Chapter 11: at home, the Vincy family talk about their neighbours
Chapter 40: at home, the Garth family talk about Fred Vincy – and Peter
Featherstone’s will
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Chapter 3: Lord Henry Wotton visits his aunt Agatha
Chapter 15: Dorian Gray and Lord Henry attend a party at Lady Narborough’s
Jane Eyre
No examples
Pride and Prejudice
Chapter 11: Supper at Aunt’s Philips’ house; Wickham makes false disclosures to
Elizabeth
Chapter 18: A ball at Netherfield Park in which multiple conversations occur

17. The ball at Netherfield Park: chapter 18
“…It would surely be
much more rational if
conversation instead of
dancing were made the
order of the day."
"Much more rational,
my dear Caroline, I dare
say, but it would not be
near so much like a
ball."
Interactions in
chapter 18,
weighted degree

18. Gossip at the ball
A (purveyor) B (recipient) C (subject)
Mr. Denny Elizabeth Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy
“I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now, if he had not wished to avoid a certain gentleman here.”
Charlotte Lucas Elizabeth Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham
A caution “not to be a simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of a man ten times
his consequence”
Regiment Officer Elizabeth Mr. Wickham
“the refreshment of talking of Wickham, and of hearing that he was universally liked”
Elizabeth Mr. Darcy Mr. Wickham
“we had just been making a new acquaintance”
Mr. Darcy Elizabeth Mr. Wickham
“Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends…”
Sir William Lucas Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy Jane and Bingley
“when a certain desirable event… shall take place”
Caroline Bingley Elizabeth Mr. Wickham
“George Wickham has treated Mr. Darcy in a most infamous manner.”
Jane Bennet Elizabeth Mr. Wickham
“Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man”
Elizabeth Jane Bennet Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy
“This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy.”
Mr. Collins Elizabeth Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mr. Darcy
“I believe him to be Lady Catherine's nephew.”
Mrs. Bennet Lady Lucas Jane and Bingley
[talking] freely, openly, and of nothing else but her expectation that Jane would soon be married to Mr. Bingley

19. Lee-Riffe: the role of dancing in Jane
Austen
“…the dance setting which so naturally brought a great number
and variety of people together provides Austen with wonderful
opportunities to maneuver plot elements: Jane and Elizabeth can
meet Bingley and Darcy at the local public assembly…”
“… most important perhaps, is the opportunity Austen seizes
from the dance setting to define and emphasize the personal
qualities of her characters, as we have already been observing.”
(109)
- Lee-Riffe, Nancy M., ‘The Role of Country Dance in the Fiction of Jane
Austen’, Women’s Writing, 5 (1998), 103–12

20. Purveyors of gossip: male and female
Chapter 18
Men (4)
Mr. Denny, Mr. Darcy, Sir William Lucas,
Mr. Collins
Women (5)
Elizabeth Bennet, Charlotte Lucas, Jane
Bennet, Caroline Bingley, Mrs. Bennet
Chapter 11
Men (2)
Mr. Wickham, Mr. Collins
Women (1)
Elizabeth Bennet

21. The gendering of gossip
As the same time that it became
synonymous with nastiness,
gossip was also more and more
regarded as a female activity. It
was said that men didn't "gossip";
instead, they engaged in "shop
talk" or "locker-room chatter" -
they were "shooting the breeze" or
"chewing the fat". And those few
men unfortunate enough to be
caught in the act of "spreading the
dirt" were said to be acting like
women... (6)
- Levin, Jack, and Arnold Arluke, Gossip:
The Inside Scoop (Springer, 2013)

22. “Enumerating”
Mrs. Bennet seemed incapable of
fatigue while enumerating the
advantages of the match [between
Jane and Bingley]. His being such a
charming young man, and so rich,
and living but three miles from
them, were the first points of self-
gratulation; and then it was such a
comfort to think how fond the two
sisters were of Jane, and to be certain
that they must desire the connection
as much as she could do. It was,
moreover, such a promising thing
for her younger daughters, as Jane's
marrying so greatly must throw
them in the way of other rich men…
• Chapter 18, Pride and Prejudice