Novels and the NSTC : A Quantitative Study of Legal Deposit

The Nineteenth‐Century Short Title Catalog (NSTC) attempts to provide comprehensive coverage of the print record in the English‐speaking world from 1801 to 1918 based primarily on the catalog records of Britain's five legal deposit libraries during the 19th century. Previous studies have used the NSTC to quantitatively study broad trends in Victorian‐era British publishing, but they have not sufficiently acknowledged the NSTC's limitations. This study works within the NSTC's limitations by using it to quantitatively study the phenomena of legal deposit. Analysis of two, 90‐volume random samples of first edition English novels reveals the impact of changing library acquisition practices and legal deposit legislation on the comprehensiveness of Britain's legal deposit libraries, as well as the NSTC's comprehensiveness and how it can be utilized for quantitative book history despite its deficiencies.