Competition between two kinds of correlations in literary texts.

A theory of additive Markov chains with long-range memory is used to describe the correlation properties of coarse-grained literary texts. The complex structure of the correlations in the texts is revealed. Anti-persistent correlations at small distances, L approximately < 300, and persistent ones at L approximately > 300 define this non-trivial structure. For some concrete examples of literary texts, the memory functions are obtained and their power-law behavior at long distances is disclosed. This property is shown to be a cause of self-similarity of texts with respect to the decimation procedure.