University of Virginia Library

An attempt made, I should add, not without considerable assistance from Mr. David F. Foxon of the British Museum, Mr. Herbert Cahoon of the Pierpont Morgan Library, Miss Barbara D. Simison of the Yale Library, and Professor Arthur Friedman of the University of Chicago. Even this good advice, however, cannot remove the possibility that one or two among the several hundred points cited here may have wandered into the wrong category, and I would be very grateful for any notice of these strays.

Among the variants listed for GNM in the standard bibliography, no. 1 page 24 seems to occur only in the second and later impressions, 2-3 pages 43, 48 in the second but the related 1-2 page 44 only in the first, and 1-2 page 51 in reverse order. For SSC the titles are inaccurately distinguished, the 2 (of 3 possible) points for page 8 given apparently in reverse order, 5th point for L gathering a possibility but not seen in any copies, and 2d point for P actually a defective specimen of the 3d. The four copies described by Scott appear to be completely regular; but the copy of SSC cited by Wise (Ashley Library, X, 115-116), along with various remarks on the integrity of one listed by Scott, is itself mixed—though not, apparently, by his own hand. Wise's example, advanced as a second copy, would seem to be the very one previously, and less accurately described in volume 2 of his Ashley Library, pp. 150-151.

Gathering G also presents, I believe, the only instance of deterioration within an impression. In all but the earliest copies of the second the ink balls have dislodged at various times the word "let" in "now let it" (42.3), the L in Lofty (45.1), and both the L and t in another Lofty (45.29), all sorts in a forme unlocked and corrected before the beginning of this run.

The Printer's Grammar (1808), p. 173.

There are, however, at least two later "New" editions, one in 1785 containing with new preliminaries a reissue of 1773 remainders, and another in 1786 completely reset.

Two remarkable examples of this practice, Sheridan's Pizarro and Erskine's View of the Present War with France, are now under study for a later report. If other points may be counted in lieu of invariant figures, the one piece over a fifteen-year interval appears to have gone through 30 impressions or "editions," the other in one year through no less than 35.

In this as in other studies I now venture to propose reasonable causes for what are commonly regarded as inexplicable "mistakes." If suppositions are to be avoided I would, at this point, refer the reader to the strictly factual, essentially correct, and most entertaining account given by Mr. Iolo Williams in the London Mercury, XI (1924), 82-86.

Through 13 March the London Evening-Post lists the first title; thereafter the second.

As compared with Scott facsimile, NN (Berg) copy has upper rule bent at both ends.

Except for the one above imprint in variants b and c, all rules in each variant are different and not, as has been supposed, several distortions of the same thing.

The price line in 2d impression has been transferred to the new half-title.

In his Ashley Library (X. 116) Wise asserts that one of the copies described by Scott, here identified as a, is merely an example of his 'first issue' c with title supplied from the 2d impression. Scott's own facsimiles, however, prove the contrary.