This dataset contains details of almost 4000 domestic and international reviews of Angus & Robertson’s children’s books, contained in the Angus & Robertson Archive:
Book Reviews in Bound Volumes, 1894-1970 (ML MSS 3269, Boxes 478-531), located at the State Library of New South Wales.
The Angus & Robertson Book Reviews dataset can be downloaded here.
This dataset has also been geocoded and mapped. The map is available here.
Explanation of terms in the dataset:
- Call Number: location of the review within the Angus & Robertson Archive.
- Book Title: full title of the book being reviewed, including any subtitles
- Author: author of the children’s book, formatted as “First Name Surname.”
- Serial: name of the newspaper or periodical that the review appeared in
- Country: country that the serial was based in
- State: state that the serial was based in (only applicable to Australian reviews)
- Town: town that the serial was based in
- Latitude: latitudinal coordinate for the town that the serial was based in.
- Longitude: longitudinal coordinate for the town that the serial was based in.
- Date of Review: date that the review appeared, formatted as DD/MM/YYYY. These dates were usually handwritten onto the review. Where the date of review is unknown, “ND” is used
- Year: year of review, allowing for easier sorting
- No. Lines: length of the review, measured by the number of text excluding the title
- Title of Review: title of the review
- Reviewer: name, pseudonym or initials of the reviewer, if stated
- First Line: opening line of the review (approximately ten words), allowing for repetitions to be traced
- Tone of Review: dominant opinion about the review (positive, neutral or negative)
