The basic assumption of the conference is that the study of medium-sized corpora, which is often underestimated in digital humanities, enables us to formulate valuable, research-based answers to the basic methodological question about the relationship between qualitative and quantitative research. “Scalable Reading” stands for an integrative concept that overcomes the much-debated juxtaposition of close and distant reading and puts together conclusions derived from both interpretative reading and computer-based analysis.

This concept is applied to one of the most popular novel compilations of the 19th century, which contains a small excerpt of canonical texts that were intensively studied in the framework of single text interpretation thus becoming representative for “their” epoch, as well as some works forgotten today, by authors who have been a part of the actual book market at the end of the 19th century and now belong to the big unread of literary history.

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