Our second area of investigation: OED's representation of women writers. There are problems here, of course. Although these figures look tiny compared with those for quotations from men, indicating that OED has significantly under-represented women authors, the number of women in print (and therefore eligible for citation in the OED) has always been far far lower. See further Baigent, Brewer and Larminie 2005 (compares OED policy on gender with that of DNB). M. R. Mitford, little read now, was popular and much published in the 19th century: Barrett Browning described her as 'a sort of prose Crabbe in the sun'.