A Distant Reading of the Ottoman/Turkish Serial Novel Tradition (1831–1908)

Abstract

The emergence and spread of the Turkish press and the birth of the Ottoman Turkish novel occurred simultaneously in the Ottoman Empire, when the press and the novel largely sustained each other. Most of the early Turkish novels were serialized in periodicals in order to raise their circulation, while newspapers and magazines seemed to be the most proper means for introducing the new genre to the readers. This symbiotic relationship of the press and the novel marks the formation of the Ottoman/Turkish serial novel tradition. This chapter uses data from the research project “History of Serial Novels in Turkish Literature (1831–1928),” which assessed 290 newspapers and journals published between 1831 and 1928 in Arabic script. It analyzes the occurrence of translated and original novels serialized in newspapers between 1860 and 1908. Taking a “distant reading” approach and sampling 140 periodicals, the chapter specifies how many periodicals serialized novels, the number of translated and original serialized novels, and the distribution of these data in terms of years, writers, and periodicals.