THE 2 AUTHORS OF COLUMBUS DIARY

Although Columbus' Diary of the first voyage to America as we know it is largely a transcription of the original diary carried out by Bartol ome de las Casas, commentators and readers often treat it as if it wer e Columbus' work alone. Editions published to date do not separate the explorer's narrative from that of his transcriber or editor. Since st yle can influence readers' perceptions of a writer's personality, it i s important to determine characteristics of writing attributed to Colu mbus that may pertain instead to his transcriber. This study employs t he computer to explore the style of Las Casas and that of Columbus. Di fferences in the writing of each ''author'' emerge with computer assis tance by isolating Columbus' words from those of his transcriber and a nalyzing selected features of vocabulary, sentence length, and syntax. 1