The Trail of the Serpent

words removed
149,325
marks left
33,487
words a sentence
19.8
most used mark
,

Its punctuation fingerprint: each mark's share, on the same scale as every book on the shelf.

Its punctuation twin, the closest fingerprint on the shelf: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 456, No. 10, October 1853, Various. More twins

M. E. Braddon on the shelf

3 books by M. E. Braddon are on the shelf. Its fingerprint is the 2nd closest of the 3 to their average. Held out and guessed from its marks alone, the shelf takes it for Mark Twain. Of the 623 other authors on the shelf, M. E. Braddon's punctuation is closest to Mark Twain's.

M. E. Braddon's average fingerprint

M. E. Braddon on the numbers page

Marks per 1,000 words, except words per sentence and dialogue (the share of words inside quotation marks).
This bookM. E. Braddon's averageEvery book's median
Semicolons11.910.67.2
Commas82.072.776.6
Colons0.70.61.6
Exclamation marks3.63.12.8
Question marks5.85.13.7
Words per sentence19.819.217.0
Dialogue36%44%22%

Every mark in reading order, left to right, top to bottom. Sentence endings are pink.

Read your own or go back to the shelf

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