In metabolic terms, publishing in the humanities is more couch potato than sprinter. An idea can take years to move from light-bulb stage to manuscript to finished book. Add another year, or two or three, before an author can expect to see reviews of that book in academic journals. That slows down an already glutted system. "It's just appalling that the average gap between publication and first review is more than two years," says James A.W. Heffernan, an emeritus professor of English at Dartmouth College. In Charles Dickens's day, he points out, "compositors were able to get whole novels out in a week or two." Why, in a wired world, should it take 24 months or more for a 1,500-word review to see the light of day? Mr. Heffernan wants to rev up the scholarly review metabolism. This fall, he plans to start an online review of scholarly books, New Books on Literature 19, "to revolutionize academic reviewing"--at least to revolutionize it in his field, which happens to be 19th-century British and American literature. He intends to do this by the simple act of publishing critiques of new books within 90 days of publication. Other Web-enabled touches: The site will invite responses from authors and comments from readers, and it will link key terms in each review to 19th-century literary resources such as the Victorian Web (http://www.victorianweb.org) and Nines (http://www.nines.org). The new online 19th-century review will be free and open to all. That also makes it a "shoestring operation," Mr. Heffernan says. It will rely on volunteer editorial labor, along with a modest grant and Web hosting from Dartmouth. A Web-savvy graduate student is building the site, and the Dartmouth College Library has pitched in with technical and moral support.