University of Virginia Library

Hidden Printings in Edith Wharton's The Children
by
Matthew J. Bruccoli

The Children (1928) is a minor novel in the Edith Wharton canon, but it is an intriguing bibliographical item. Although corroborative details from the publisher's records are incomplete, physical evidence in copies of the book reveals that what has passed for the first printing of The Children actually consists of two printings from duplicate plates; furthermore, both these printings include two states. Subsequent production of the novel introduced more hidden printings. It seems extremely unlikely, though, that there was any attempt by the publisher to mislead the public.

Even though the text of the novel is not altered, The Children points a

lesson for all who are professionally concerned with books printed from plates: modern printing methods are not to be taken as guaranteeing uniformity in all copies included within a single impression. Moreover, an attempt to differentiate printings cannot be restricted to an examination of the publisher's code or the information supplied on the copyright page. Although in most cases there is no intentional deception, the information too frequently turns out to be erroneous or misleading. In some instances the publisher is simply not interested in the strict accuracy of this information; in other cases the divorce between the editorial office and the printing plant makes the correct facts unavailable.

It has been a rule for collectors and cataloguers to differentiate printings of an Appleton book by the numeral in parentheses at the foot of the last page of text. A "(2)", for example, indicates that the book in hand is a second printing. Undoubtedly, collectors have noticed that the first printing is sometimes designated by a roman "(I)" and sometimes by an arabic "(1)"; but since both forms were never reported in the same title, this distinction apparently occasioned no speculation. In The Children, however, both "(I)" and "(1)" occur.[1] Copies with "(1)" also have the statement "First Printing, September, 1928" on the copyright page—which is contrary to Appleton practice—whereas "(I)" copies lack this legend.[2] When queried, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. (the successor firm to D. Appleton & Co.) replied: "The reason for this [the two sets of markings in The Children] was to distinguish between our copies for trade distribution and those supplied to the Book-of-the-Month Club for their use. We can only assume that the copies with the legend 'First Printing, September, 1928' on the title pages verso were the first copies run off on the original printing, and the balance of the copies were for the Book-of-the-Month Club."[3] This explanation would seem to indicate either a stop-press revision or two printings. On the other hand, neither of these alternatives will satisfactorily account for the variants within the printings. That The Children was a book-club selection suggests the possibility of duplicate plates, which provides the key to the problem.

Collation on the Hinman Machine at the University of Virginia reveals that pages 122 and 135 of The Children were reset without textual revision. Both forms of each page appear in "(I)" copies and in "(1)" copies, thus producing four states of the "first printing." Since page 122 was not reset line-for-line, the two forms of the page are readily distinguished. Page 135 was reset line-for-line—although the lengths of short lines 8 and 15 were not kept uniform—but there is a typo in one form of page 135, where "moters" appears for "motors". But it is doubtful that page 135 was reset

just to correct "moters", for this correction could have been made with a plate patch. Rather, "moters" appears to be a typo which was introduced when the page was reset for another reason, which is detailed below.

The Children was published on 1 September 1928, and on 22 September Appleton advertised in Publishers' Weekly that more than 100,000 copies were in print. The book was a sleeper, and the necessity for producing a large number of copies in some haste plus Book-of-the-Month Club distribution made duplicate plates practicable. The Book-of-the-Month Club at that time purchased copies from the original publisher, rather than leasing plates for separate production, as is its practice now.[4]

Although there is an ingenious way to account for the four states of the "first printing" by postulating stop-press revisions of the code number and copyright page in both sets of plates, what follows is a more reasonable explanation. Two sets of plates were prepared at the beginning of production. In one of these sets the copyright page and code number were altered to distinguish the Book-of-the-Month Club copies. From the fact that the "(1)" is tilted and badly printed, it is probable that the "(1)" was mortised in to replace the "(I)", and that "First Printing, September, 1928" was added to the copyright page of the "(1)" set of plates to make it doubly distinguishable. Both sets of plates were machined at about the same time; but in one set the inner forme of the ninth gathering sustained serious damage or batter in the area of pages 122 and 135 (these are adjacent in standard octavo impositions), necessitating resetting and replating of the two pages. In this resetting the typo "moters" was introduced.

That the "(I)" copies were distributed by Appleton and the "(1)" copies by the Book-of-the-Month Club is indicated by the locations of certain copies. Both Library of Congress copyright deposit copies (A 1054115, deposited 6 September 1928) have "(I)", whereas the Book-of-the-Month Club file copy has "(1)". Two inscribed copies in the Yale University Library, dated August 1928 and 14 August 1928, have "(I)"—and it is certain that the author's advance copies would have come from the publisher rather than a book club.

The only available printing information in the Appleton-Century-Crofts files clearly supports the theory that there were two separate printings included within the "first printing."

       

ptg #1		ptg #1
14182		14221
6/19/28	30,740	7/23/28	55,000
7/19

Here the five-digit number is the job or order identification number.

The foregoing account identifies two printings from duplicate plates, but not the four states that have been noted. These were created when the sheets were bound. Except for the first and last gatherings, no attempt would have been made to segregate the sheets printed from the two sets of plates; consequently the sheets for the ninth gathering (containing pages 122

and 135) were integrated when they came off the presses and were moved to the bindery. This statement is at least partly substantiated by the gutter markings in The Children. Throughout the book the letter "I" or "N" appears in the gutters. These are identification marks inserted by the stonemen or pressmen in the dead areas of the formes so as to print on the spines of the gatherings or deep in the gutters.[5] Most likely, these particular letters are the initials of the men, who for our purposes may be dubbed Isaac on press # 1 and Newton on press # 2. A tabulation of these initials in twelve copies—one of which was cut apart—revealed no discernible pattern, a finding that lends further support to the idea that the sheets were mixed in the bindery. This theory would be neatly substantiated were freak copies with "(I) and "First Printing, September, 1928" or "(1)" and no legend to turn up.

The most curious point about this problem is the fact that although two printings from duplicate plates are clearly indicated, these two printings cannot be isolated—except for the first and last gatherings—because the sheets were scrambled. In any case, the Edith Wharton collector will need all four states of the first two printings.

In 1928 it was not the practice of the Book-of-the-Month Club to reorder; it placed just one order for the quantity of a title needed for distribution.[6] Yet Appleton continued to print The Children from both sets of plates. This statement contradicts the printing records:

     

ptg #2		ptg #3
14274		14294
8/23/28	10,000	9/13	15,170

But on the evidence of the variant pages 122 and 135, the copies marked "(2)" include two printings; and there is no other way to account for these variants. The same is true for copies marked "(3)". Moreover, the two sets of plates were shuffled before the "(3)" copies were printed, a procedure that introduced two new combinations of pages 122 and 135—the combination of the "is . . . most" form of 122 with the "motors" form of 135, and the combination of "is . . . sen-" with "moters". The Grosset & Dunlap copies—printed from one set of plates leased from Appleton[7] —were a new impression, although this fact is obscured by the retention of the "(3)" in these copies.[8]

notes