Social stereotypes (e.g. images of women) are language-based and are thus reflected in a society's designative and descriptive practices. With reference to literary discourse in 19th century girls' books, the present study develops a method for the reconstruction of such language-based images by analyzing (a) references to persons and (b) collocations. The author demonstrates inter alia how the category of the Backfisch (a now largely obsolete but formerly widely used expression for »teenage girl«) and the image of women bound up with it developed between 1850 and 1914. Thus the book also represents a contribution to the history of mentality in the 19th century.