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Crane's Red Badge of
Courage and
Other 'Advance Copies'
by
Fredson Bowers
The firm of D. Appleton & Co. seems to have made a practice of supplying special copies of its books to English publishers for copyright purposes. The most familiar example is Stephen Crane's Maggie in the 1896 New York edition, noticed by Williams and Starrett in their Bibliography (pp. 25-26). A mint copy is preserved in the Barrett Collection in the University of Virginia Library (acquisition 551431) and a rebound copy in the British Museum (shelf mark 012628.g.64), spine and back wrapper wanting. The advance copies are bound in buff wrappers instead of cloth, and on the front wrapper (spine and back wrapper are blank) appears the New York title-page in its gothic-type setting except that no imprint is present. Instead, in purple ink the rubber-stamp imprint appears: 'WM. HEINEMANN, | PUBLISHER, | 21, BEDFORD STREET, | LONDON, W.C.' The title-page is a cancel and on slightly coated wove paper, different from the regular stock, the cancellans reads: 'MAGGIE | A
It is a characteristic of such advance copies found in England that associations with the United States are omitted. Thus the verso of the half-title is blank in the 1896 'advance' Maggie instead of containing the boxed advertisements of the regular printing. In addition, the regular preliminary gathering in 8's has been reimposed to omit the Appleton "Publisher's Note" found on 13 and thus is a gathering in 8's still but with a new preliminary blank leaf so that the half-title is p. iii instead of p. i, and so on. Finally, the last gathering in 8's which in the trade edition had consisted of pp. 155-158 ending the text, followed by six leaves of integral Appleton advertisements, has been reimposed to form a gathering in 2's omitting the advertisements. From certain signs in the Barrett copy it would appear that this 'advance' form was pulled as proofs, though on the standard wove book-paper, and not printed on the press like the trade sheets.
It is worth mention that the British Museum copy is stamped June 8, 1896. Williams and Starrett are mistaken in assigning this date stamp to their no. 9, the 1896 Heinemann edition of Maggie, which was not deposited in the Museum, the special Appleton copy with Heinemann cancel title-page having served the purpose of copyright.
Williams and Starrett notice the existence of a 'probable advance copy' of their no. 10, The Little Regiment published by Appleton in 1896, but no details are provided. The British Museum possesses a rebound example date-stamped October 30, 1896 (shelf mark 012601.i.30/17) with the original wrappers discarded, but fortunately the Bodleian Library deposit copy date-stamped November 13, 1896, preserves the once white plain paper wrappers (Fic.2712 e. 1328). The original front blank leaf is preserved, but the first leaf of the unsigned initial gathering in 8's is removed since it was the half-title with Appleton advertisements on the verso. The title is a cancel, on laid paper with vertical chainlines and the watermark 'Abbey Mills | Greenfield', thus proving that it was printed in England. This cancel reads: 'THE LITTLE REGIMENT | And Other Episodes of the American | Civil War | BY | STEPHEN CRANE | AUTHOR OF "THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE," | AND "MAGGIE" | LONDON | WILLIAM HEINEMANN | 1896'. The verso is blank. The final three leaves of integral Appleton advertisements (sigs. 136-8) have been cancelled. This special copy differs from that of Maggie in that it consists of the regular trade American sheets and so the leaves of American advertisements had to be cancelled, not removed by reimposition. Once again Williams and Starrett confuse the Museum deposit date by assigning it, wrongly, to their
The Barrett Collection of the University of Virginia Library owns an example of this 'advance copy' of The Little Regiment in its original condition, with all leaves intact and the regular American title-page. Collation of this copy on the Hinman Machine against the Barrett copy of the regular first edition shows (a) unlike the 1896 Maggie this is composed of regularly printed sheets; (b) except for the most minor of batter variation these sheets are identical with those of the normal first edition and are of the same printing.
The Appleton edition of The Third Violet in 1897 seems to have been prepared in a special edition but was not used, since the British Museum copy (not date-stamped) of the American edition (012704.f.33) is a regular trade copy and the Heinemann 1897 copy (also without date-stamp) is preserved there. The Bodleian Library, also, does not have a special copy. However, the Columbia University Libraries own a special copy (B812 C85.X2 1897) in plain buff wrappers lacking the preliminary unsigned leaf (which was conjugate with the pasted-down endpaper) and with the verso of the half-title blank instead of containing the Appleton advertisements of the trade edition. The top edges are not stained as in the trade edition. Presumably these are proofs on the wove book paper. Why this form of the book, manifestly designed for foreign copyright, was not sent abroad to Heinemann is not known.
On the analogy of Maggie, The Little Regiment, and The Third Violet Williams and Starrett speculate that pre-publication copies of The Red Badge of Courage may exist. It is a pleasure to announce that they are indeed in existence both at the British Museum and Bodleian libraries where Heinemann used them as deposits for copyright. The British Museum copy (012706.k.21) has the date stamp September 27, 1895. It is printed on laid paper with horizontal chainlines and is bound in cream boards, the spine plain dark-brown cloth, and the back cover blank. The front cover is printed with the same typesetting as is used for the title-page, which is a slightly coated wove-paper cancel, without decorations. This unique title reads: 'THE RED BADGE | OF COURAGE | An Episode of the American Civil Mar | BY | STEPHEN CRANE | [Appleton device] | NEW YORK | D. APPLETON AND COMPANY | 1895.' The copyright notices on the verso appear to be in the same typesetting as those on the title-page verso of the trade edition. The final gathering in 8's has been reimposed to 6's in order to remove the integral advertisements occupying 157-8 of the trade edition. In both the British Museum and Bodleian (Fic. 2712 f.272, date stamped on October 17, 1895) copies a rubber stamp prints in purple above the Appleton imprint, 'LONDON &'. These special copies are presumably pulled proof on the regular book paper used
Several points are of immediate significance. First, the title-leaf of these two special copies is a cancel but exhibits a unique typesetting not previously known. Since the title-leaf of the American trade edition is also a cancel, the original title is still to find. Second, these special copies give us the incontrovertibly first state of the type by which to check all American trade printings. Its characteristics appear to coincide with those of the Library of Congress deposit copy with the perfect type on page 225. Third, instead of light brown coated endpapers of the trade edition, the British Museum copy has white wove endpapers conjugate with the flyleaves. Fourth, the British Museum copy contains a number of small changes in pencil that seem to have been editorially made in preparation for the first Heinemann edition. It is possible, therefore, that this deposit copy may have served as the printer's copy for the English first edition although no signs exist of handling in the print shop, and so it may be that another copy was prepared for the printer from it.
The variants in two other Crane books found in England may be noted. The first is minor. Both the British Museum and the London Library copies (the latter rebound) of the Heinemann Open Boat of 1898 lack the bound-in publisher's advertisements mentioned in Williams and Starrett.
The second is more important and is not recorded by Williams and Starrett. In both the British Museum (shelf mark 012707.a.22, date-stamped November 12, 1903) and Bodleian (2561 e.2090) copies of the Stokes New York first edition of The O'Ruddy in 1903, the title-page has a paste-over slip on the lower part of the title-page starting with the line 'With frontispiece by' and continuing to obscure the American imprint. Actually, in the Bodleian copy this pasteover slip is in two parts: the original slip covered the ornament and imprint, and then another was added to cover the frontispiece notice. On the lower slip appears the imprint 'METHUEN & CO. | 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. | LONDON' in a different setting from the Methuen imprint in the English 1904 edition. On the verso of the title-page the copyright notice is left intact but the line 'Published in October, 1903' has been scraped out. The frontispiece is wanting in both copies. The Williams and Starrett collation for the Stokes edition is faulty, since instead of being [1-22]8 as described it is in fact 1-228 234, with the third leaf of the gatherings carrying the signature.
What may or may not be a binding variant exists between the British Museum and Bodleian copies. The British Museum is bound in light-brown paper pasted over dark-brown boards with a plain dark-brown cloth spine. On the other hand, the Bodleian copy is bound in greenish-gray plain paper wrappers. Since other Crane wrappered items rebound in the British Museum collection indicate that the wrappers were preserved in the
Notes
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