Josefine Mutzenbacher oder die Geschichte einer Wienerischen Dirne von ihr selbst erzählt, published in Vienna in 1906, represents one of the most fascinating cases of attribution of authorship in German literature. Although Josefine Mutzenbacher is usually attributed to Felix Salten, the author of the world-famous Bambi (1923), the novel’s authorship has never been confirmed, and many other candidates have been named as potential authors. Among them is Arthur Schnitzler, who published Reigen, a cycle of amorous adventures in Viennese society, in 1903. Some scholars, instead, have attributed the novel to such lesser-known writers as Ernst Klein and Willi Handl. The controversy surrounding the authorship of Josefine Mutzenbacher was the starting point for our stylometric analyses, and our results help to answer some unresolved questions in a debate that has lasted for more than 100 years. The analyses were performed using the R package Stylo, which enables an efficient application of Burrows’ Delta and its variants. Focusing on both the entire text and on the final pages, two different types of analysis were carried out: one combines 1200 different stylometric methods to compare the candidate authors Salten, Schnitzler, Bahr, Altenberg, Hofmannsthal, Klein and Handl; the other verifies the attribution using the ‘impostors’ method. The results show that the most probable author is Felix Salten, while none of the candidates could be identified as the author of the final pages, confirming the hypothesis that the text was left unfinished by Salten and completed by an as-yet-unidentified ghost-writer.

Josefine Mutzenbacher oder die Geschichte einer Wienerischen Dirne von ihr selbst erzählt于 1906 年在维也纳出版，是德国文学中最引人入胜的作者归属案例之一。虽然Josefine Mutzenbacher通常被认为是世界著名的《小鹿斑比》（1923 年）的作者菲利克斯·萨尔滕（Felix Salten），但该小说的作者身份从未得到证实，许多其他候选人已被提名为潜在作者。其中包括出版Reigen的 Arthur Schnitzler，1903 年维也纳社会多情冒险的循环。相反，一些学者将这部小说归因于恩斯特·克莱因和威利·汉德尔等鲜为人知的作家。围绕 Josefine Mutzenbacher 的作者身份的争议是我们进行文体分析的起点，我们的结果有助于回答持续了 100 多年的辩论中的一些悬而未决的问题。分析是使用 R 包 Stylo 进行的，它可以有效地应用 Burrows 的 Delta 及其变体。着眼于全文和最后几页，进行了两种不同类型的分析：一种结合 1200 种不同的文体方法来比较候选作者 Salten、Schnitzler、Bahr、Altenberg、Hofmannsthal、Klein 和 Handl；另一个使用“冒名顶替者”方法验证归属。