UCC undergrad published in leading journal

6 Jul 2020

UCCDH undergraduate student Rachel McCarthy has co-authoed a paper published in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, one of the leading journals in the field of digital humanities. The paper, entitled "Who Wrote Wuthering Heights?", was co-authored with Dr James O'Sullivan from the Department of Digital Humanities at UCC. Rachel is currently preparing to enter the third year of her studies on the BA in Digital Humanities & Information Technology (CK118).

One of the most famous and arguably most significant novels ever written, Emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. She chose to publish under a pseudonym because, at that time, famale authors were not fairly treated by publishers and critics. It was not until the later second edition, published in 1850 after Emily’s death, that she was credited as the novel’s true author. At various points since Wuthering Heights was first published 173 years ago, a vocal minority of commentators have questioned Emily's claim to the novel, arguing that it was really written by either her brother Branwell or sister Charlotte.

McCarthy and O'Sullivan's study uses stylometry, a computer-assisted technique which measures the likely author of a text, to end this persistent, and largely unfounded, speculation. They conclude the Emily Brontë, as has long been accepted by most scholars and readers, did in fact write Wuthering Heights.

The paper, which will later appear in a print issue of Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, is currently available through OUP Academic: https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqaa031

A shorter account of the study has been published in The Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/who-wrote-wuthering-heights-1.4305162

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities is published by Oxford University Press.