Who wrote the penultimate chapter of <i>The Female Quixote</i> : a stylometric authorship attribution study

Abstract The Female Quixote or The Adventures of Arabella has been at the centre of a critical debate regarding the authorship of its penultimate chapter. Both Samuel Johnson and Charlotte Lennox have been subject to subjective attributions as potential authors, yet no conclusive result has been reached thus far. In this research, I undertake an authorship attribution study utilizing computational stylometric methods to shed light on this long-standing literary conundrum. The study employs three methods for this purpose: bootstrap consensus network analysis, distance- and machine learning-based classification, and rolling stylometry to assess stylistic consistency and identify the most likely author of the disputed chapter. These methods have demonstrated effectiveness in distinguishing the unique patterns and nuances present in different authors’ works. To enhance the robustness and validity of the attribution, the attribution is cross-validated, and multiple experiments are conducted using various distance measures and different numbers of most frequent words. The findings indicate, with a high degree of confidence, that the penultimate chapter of The Female Quixote was authored by Samuel Johnson.