What can digital humanities do for literary adaptation studies: distant reading of children's editions of Robinson Crusoe.

This article examines the application of digital humanities methodologies—specifically word cloud, keyword extraction, and sentiment analysis using Python—in literary research, focusing on the adaptation of Daniel Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe* into children's editions across the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using a corpus of over ten children's versions, the study reveals a general trend toward more positive sentiment in adaptations compared to the original, alongside notable shifts in thematic emphasis, such as increased prominence of the character Friday and the diminished presence of religious references. The research highlights the suitability of digital humanities tools for adaptation studies by enabling diachronic comparisons that uncover nuanced changes in language and sentiment, while also acknowledging current limitations of computational methods in fully capturing literary complexity. The article advocates for further development of digital tools tailored to literary analysis and demonstrates how combining distant reading with close reading can enrich literary criticism.