# The Afterlives of Shakespeare and Company in Online Social Readership

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.07340 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.07340/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 2 of its 15 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jan 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Fine-Grained Spoiler Detection from Large-Scale Review Corpora](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.13416/) (2019)
- [A Clarified Typology of Core-Periphery Structure in Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.10191/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [MajinBook: An open catalogue of digitally mediated world literature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.11412/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The growth of social reading platforms such as Goodreads and LibraryThing enables us to analyze reading activity at very large scale and in remarkable detail. But twenty-first century systems give us a perspective only on contemporary readers. Meanwhile, the digitization of the lending library records of Shakespeare and Company provides a window into the reading activity of an earlier, smaller community in interwar Paris. In this article, we explore the extent to which we can make comparisons between the Shakespeare and Company and Goodreads communities. By quantifying similarities and differences, we can identify patterns in how works have risen or fallen in popularity across these datasets. We can also measure differences in how works are received by measuring similarities and differences in co-reading patterns. Finally, by examining the complete networks of co-readership, we can observe changes in the overall structures of literary reception.