University of Virginia Library

II

A brief survey of some of the historical editions which followed, beginning in 1959 with the Franklin, Calhoun, and Clay editions, will illustrate how similar their characteristic position is to that of one or more of the three statements of the early 1950s.[40] Leonard W. Labaree, in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (Yale University Press, 1959- ),[41]

sets out to follow "a middle course between exact reproduction . . . and complete modernization" (p. xl)[42] and cites the Harvard Guide for "a discussion of principles which the editors have in general followed." The aim is "to preserve as faithfully as possible the form and spirit in which the authors composed their documents, and at the same time to reproduce their words in a manner intelligible to the present-day reader." Insofar as the second aim involves alteration of the original, it would seem to be incompatible with the first. Labaree distinguishes his treatment of printed copy-texts from that of manuscript copy-texts. The former, he says, are "considered as having been edited once from an original manuscript" and therefore are presented as originally printed, except for the silent alteration of certain typographic conventions (italic proper names are made roman and words in full capitals are made lower case) and the silent correction of "obvious" errors (otherwise, "no attempt will be made to reconstruct the original version"). In manuscript copy-texts, however, contractions are expanded, periods are placed at the ends of sentences, and punctuation is altered in various other ways: "A dash used in place of a period, comma, or semicolon will be replaced by the appropriate mark of punctuation . . . Commas scattered meaninglessly through a sentence will be silently omitted" (p. xlii). These procedures leave the editor in the ironic position of treating printed texts—which are at least one step removed from the author's manuscript and may contain compositors' alterations—with greater respect than authorial manuscript texts, in which there is direct evidence of the author's practice. Furthermore, there is no recognition of the fact that printed texts may vary from copy to copy or that manuscript texts may be of a kind that were never intended for publication. The idea that a printed copy-text has already "been edited once" and thus requires less alteration implies that the scholarly editor's function, like that of the printing- or publishing-house editor, is to put a text—regardless of its nature—in "publishable" shape. But, as Labaree knows, a scholar is interested in the "form and spirit" of Franklin himself; and most of the silent changes described here can only take one farther away from him. Part of the texture of contemporary detail is sacrificed for the sake of a supposedly more readable text, though many of the deleted features would not have caused a reader any real difficulties in the first place. One must wonder why, if a partially modernized text of Franklin had to be produced, it could not have been accompanied by a record of editorial alterations.[43]

The same year, in The Papers of John C. Calhoun (University of South Carolina Press, 1959- ), Robert L. Meriwether took a different position from Labaree, arguing that printed texts could be treated more freely than manuscript texts because Calhoun was not responsible for printed reports of speeches and the like; yet the freedom employed— involving the silent revision of capitalization and punctuation and the breaking up of paragraphs—seems excessive, especially in view of the fact that Calhoun probably revised the reporter's accounts in some cases (p. xxxv). In manuscript texts, the editor does not allow Calhoun to employ two marks of punctuation together (one is chosen), and dashes at the ends of sentences are silently changed to periods. The most confusing device in this edition is the use of roman type in square brackets to represent both editorial restorations and authorial cancellations. W. Edwin Hemphill, taking over with the second volume (1963), makes explicit reference to the Expanded Method of the Harvard Guide (p. xxvii). By contrast, The Papers of Henry Clay (University of Kentucky Press, 1959— ), edited by James F. Hopkins,[44] says little about editorial method and nothing about punctuation, except that the lowering of superscript letters sometimes affects the punctuation. Presumably punctuation is otherwise unaltered, and the "original spelling and capitalization have been retained" (p. ix), so that this edition may come closer to offering a literal treatment than the others of 1959—although "typographical errors" in printed texts are silently corrected. The problem of variant texts, frequently slighted in historical editions, is at least commented on here: "When several contemporary copies, but not the original letter of delivery, have been discovered, that which most closely approximates the form identified with the sender has been used. When there are several versions of a manuscript in the inscriber's hand, that which most closely represents his final intent has been accepted." This statement shows no awareness of the intricacies of textual criticism. The first sentence does not recognize the possibility of constructing an "eclectic"

text; it assumes that the task is to edit a single document, not the text which is found embodied in several documents. Yet when errors in a printed copy are silently corrected, the editor is concerning himself with an idealized text rather than with the reproduction of a specific embodiment of the text; the principle that is recognized in handling a printed text is not extended to situations involving scribal copies, though both may obviously contain departures from the author's manuscript. And the second sentence does not suggest the difficulties of determining "final intent" or the importance of variant readings among the holograph drafts.

In 1961 two more large editions began publication. One was The Adams Papers (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)—which, like the Jefferson and Franklin editions, had been designated a priority project by the NHPC.[45] Lyman H. Butterfield, describing his editorial method in the first volume of The Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, praises those other two editions, and it is clear that his procedures closely resemble those of the Jefferson edition (with which he had earlier been associated).[46] He aims at a "middle ground between pedantic fidelity and readability" (p. lvi) and adds that scholars who are "concerned with the ultimate niceties of a critical passage" can "resort" to the microfilm edition of the Adams papers.[47] It is true that the availability of the papers on microfilm makes it earsier for a scholar to check readings in the manuscripts, but that fact has no bearing on the editor's responsibility for producing a sound text in a letterpress edition. The reason for undertaking a letterpress edition of material available on

microfilm is not simply to offer a more readable (that is, partly modernized) text; it is to furnish readers with a text which has benefited from the editor's critical thinking about what the writer meant to have in that text.[48] Of course, a scholar under any circumstances may wish to consult the original manuscripts (just as he might wish to check on any other documentation); but to justify silent alterations in a printed text on the grounds that a scholar can always look at the manuscripts is to conceive of editing as little more than styling for present-day readability. In addition, the discussion suggests that only a few scholars will be interested in such matters as punctuation and even takes a disparaging tone toward anyone concerned with them. Rather than counting on the reader's agreement that it is "pedantic" to be interested in the "ultimate niceties" of a text, it would be more positive and productive to assume that readers will want to understand the text as fully as they can and will not wish to slight any aspect of it in the process.

As with many other historical editions, the determination here not to emend from a variant text is in odd contrast to the leniency with which the selected text is handled. Relevant texts are collated and "significant" differences are recorded; however, Butterfield says, "Whatever version is found in the manuscripts being edited has perforce been considered the 'basic' text in the present volume" (p. lix). Two years later, in the opening volume of Adams Family Correspondence, a supplementary editorial discussion marks a notable departure from this practice: the comparison of copies, it is said, can call attention to clarifications of grammar, corrections of spelling, and the like, and such changes are adopted silently (p. xlv). The fact that their immediate source is another document makes this an "eclectic" procedure, and the statement is a welcome recognition of the possibility of editing a text rather than a document. The Adams edition, unlike many of the literary editions of published works, does not fully carry this approach through; but it has gone farther than most of the historical editions in enunciating the principle on which the establishment of critical texts rests.[49]

The other edition beginning in 1961, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (Columbia University Press), edited by Harold C. Syrett,[50] places even more stress on modernization: not only are punctuation and capitalization altered "where it seemed necessary to make clear the sense

of the writer" but a "special effort has been made to eliminate the dash, which was such a popular eighteenth-century device" (p. xvii). The reader is at more of a loss than usual to know what the editor has done, because "unintentional slips" are handled in one of four ways (they are allowed to stand, explained in a note, corrected with bracketed insertions, or corrected silently), but there is no discussion of the circumstances for choosing one method over another. Deletions are reported only when "the significance of a manuscript seems to warrant it," as is also the case in The Papers of James Madison (University of Chicago Press, 1962- ), edited by William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal (and, later, Robert A. Rutland).[51] Because Madison made some revisions in his papers long after they were written, the editors rightly feel that these later alterations should be distinguished from the earlier ones: "Changes which the editors believe that Madison made in later life, when looking back over his papers, are given in footnotes" (p. xxxvii). But since the determination of which revisions fall into this class rests on editorial judgment and since cancellations are not reported ordinarily, there is the possibility that in some instances Madison's later revisions have been incorporated into the text, with no record of canceled readings to call attention to the potential problem. Donald Jackson's edition, the same year, of the Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with Related Documents, 1783-1854 (University of Illinois Press, 1962), is again a partly modernized edition: "When in doubt as to how to proceed in a trivial matter I silently follow modern practice." He employs identical policies in two later editions, The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike (University of Oklahoma Press, 1966- ) and The Expeditions of John Charles Frémont (edited with Mary Lee Spence; University of Illinois Press, 1970- ). Like many of his fellow editors, he insists on normalizing the end-punctuation of sentences and eliminating superfluous dashes.[52] He is also characteristic in neglecting the possibility of authoritative variants in printed texts; as he says in the Frémont, "Material taken from printed texts is so indicated . . . but no attempt is made to record other printed versions." His departures from his copy-texts are in general said to be "based on common sense and the current practice of scholars." Whether that current practice is in turn based on a coherent and defensible editorial rationale is not inquired into; practices which are current tend to become self-perpetuating by inspiring uncritical acceptance.[53]

Some of the other editions of the late 1960s follow the same path. The goal of The Papers of Henry Laurens (University of South Carolina Press, 1968- ), edited by Philip M. Hamer (and, later, George C. Rogers, Jr.),[54] is to follow "with some deviations" the Expanded Method of the Harvard Guide. Although the object is "not only an accurate but a readable text," the word "accurate" here cannot refer to punctuation, and modernization seems to take first place: "The flavor of the eighteenth century . . . has been maintained where clarity would not be sacrificed" (p. xxxi). The editorial function is conceived of as the accurate conveyance of "meaning" rather than of a text: "Superfluous commas may be omitted or reduced in number, and commas will be added when they will assist the reader, but no punctuation will be changed unless it is clear to the editors that no change of meaning will result." What is clear to one informed person, of course, may not be so to another, and it is debatable whether the "readability" gained is worth the price of not knowing what is in the original; reporting the evidence would not settle the question whether modernization is desirable, but it would make the situation more tolerable. The Correspondence of James K. Polk (Vanderbilt University Press, 1969- ), edited by Herbert Weaver, also modernizes for "clarity," including grammar in what can be altered. "These changes have generally been made silently," Weaver says, "rather than risk cluttering the pages with editorial props that divert attention from the meaning or spirit of the writers" (p. xii)[55] —though the alterations themselves have already done that to some extent.

Not all the editions of the late 1960s, however, conform to the prevailing pattern. One is pleasantly surprised to find that Arthur S. Link's edition of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton University Press, 1966- )[56] makes very few—and clearly defined—silent emendations

(such as lowering superscript letters and replacing dashes with periods at the ends of sentences); otherwise, each document is "reproduced exactly as it appears in the original" (p. xvi), with any change marked by brackets (and deleted matter reported in angle brackets). It is true that the changes are made "for the sake of clarity," as in the other editions, but here the reader knows where they occur. Similarly, LeRoy P. Graf and Ralph W. Haskins, in The Papers of Andrew Johnson (University of Tennessee Press, 1967- ),[57] make no changes of spelling or punctuation without using brackets (and apparently the only alteration of punctuation is the insertion of bracketed periods), although they add in the second volume (1970) that slips of the pen are eliminated. A third edition of these years, John Y. Simon's edition of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant (Southern Illinois University Press, 1967- ),[58] is particularly commendable. It can state flatly that "None of Grant's spelling, grammar, or punctuation has been altered" (p. xxxi), and it reports deletions in canceled type.

Most of the historical editions which followed in the 1970s unfortunately did not imitate these three editions but continued in the familiar pattern of partial modernization and selective recording of evidence. Robert A. Rutland's edition of The Papers of George Mason (University of North Carolina Press, 1970) states that it is following Boyd's Jefferson; while it retains inconsistent spellings, it silently regularizes the punctuation of sentence-endings, reduces Mason's capitalized pronouns to lower case, and inserts periods "in place of many a semicolon or colon that the writer obviously intended to function as a break rather than a pause" (p. xxii). Haskell M. Monroe, Jr., and James T. McIntosh, in The Papers of Jefferson Davis (Louisiana State University Press, 1971- ) also silently emend punctuation according to modern standards, sometimes "correcting" a colon to a comma or a period; but, oddly, they do not insert what they regard as needed punctuation where no punctuation is present in the manuscript, representing the lack instead by an extended space. The Papers of Joseph Henry (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972- ), edited by Nathan Reingold, takes the Adams edition as its model and incorporates canceled matter in angle brackets if of "historical, psychological, or stylistic significance" (it is hard to

see how any canceled matter could be eliminated on these grounds). Although punctuation and spelling are said to be "usually faithfully preserved," "ubiquitous dashes are converted to modern commas and periods, and a few commas and periods are inserted silently where absolutely necessary for clear understanding" (p. xxxv).

Louis R. Harlan, in the second volume (1972) of The Booker T. Washington Papers (University of Illinois Press, 1972- ),[59] describes his policy of silently correcting "typed and printed errors" and regularizing some punctuation, "except in semi-literate letters, which are reproduced exactly as written in order to avoid an inordinate amount of editorial intrusion into the document." A more valid reason for printing them as written is that the documents are more revealing unemended—an argument which could be applied to a much wider range of material. The first volume of this edition, containing Washington's published autobiographical writings, illustrates the way in which editors who primarily work with single manuscript texts sometimes fail to report adequately on multiple printed texts. Harlan's brief textual comment on Up from Slavery, for instance, merely says that the first book edition is used as copy-text in preference to the serialization in the Outlook because the magazine "did not include all that later appeared in the book version" and because "Negro" is spelled with a capital, as Washington wanted it, in the book but not in the magazine. Nothing is said to characterize the material added to the book or to explain the relation of the book text in other respects to that of the magazine, and no lising of variants is provided. The two texts do differ occasionally in punctuation and spelling ("coloured" in the book vs. "colored" in the magazine, for example), but the question of which text better reflects Washington's practice in these respects is never addressed.

In E. James Ferguson's The Papers of Robert Morris (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973- ), slips of the pen and "casual or incorrect punctuation" (p. xxxiv) are corrected: "Dashes and commas randomly distributed in the manuscripts are silently removed." Herbert A. Johnson's The Papers of John Marshall (University of North Carolina Press, 1974- ) also silently emends some punctuation but interestingly confuses the author's intention with standards of correctness for a published work: sentences are supplied with opening capitals and closing periods "as necessary to preserve the original intention of the writer" (p. xxxvi). Apparently printed texts are reproduced with greater fidelity than manuscript texts, if that is what is meant by saying that dashes at the

ends of sentences are "silently omitted from documents other than those that reproduce a previous imprint." In other respects punctuation is not emended silently, for Johnson recognizes "the uncertainties involved in correcting any given writer's use of the comma." He very sensibly continues, "Should considerations of clarity dictate some explanatory insertion, the editors have added punctuation in square brackets, thereby permitting the reader to reach his own decision concerning the propriety of the editorial decision."[60] The Papers of Daniel Webster (University Press of New England, 1974- ), edited by Charles M. Wiltse,[61] is similarly cautious about silent changes and makes none except to replace the dashes "intended" as periods; it is careful to retain misspellings and abbreviations or to alter them only in brackets. Merrill Jensen's two recent editions, however, go to the opposite extreme: both The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788-1790 (with Robert A. Becker; University of Wisconsin Press, 1976- ) and The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976- )[62] remove capitals and italics "except when they are evidently used by the author for emphasis," add punctuation "if needed to clarify meaning," and modernize spelling except for personal names (p. xvi); although official documents and a few others are given in a literal text, other printed texts are emended to eliminate certain eighteenth-century practices, "except when capital letters and italics were evidently used for emphasis by the author or the printer."

Enough has been said to show the characteristic textual practices of the NHPRC editions and other editions modeled on them. But I do not wish to imply that "historical" editions are the only ones which have indulged in partial modernization and selective reporting of emendations and have in general taken a superficial view of textual matters. A number of editions of the letters of literary figures—not particularly influenced by the modern practice of historians—are equally unsatisfactory. The influence, in fact, may go the other way, because The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence (Yale University Press, 1937- ), edited by Wilmarth S. Lewis,[63] was the first of the modern

large-scale editions of a single figure and has been cited as an influential force in some of the historical accounts of the NHPRC editions.[64] Lewis did set a good example in his thorough explanatory annotation and in his careful headnote to each letter giving details about the manuscript. His treatment of the text, however, raises some questions. Although he indicates, with brackets, emendations of words, he makes numerous silent emendations of punctuation and spelling. The policy is to retain Walpole's punctuation (but not that of his correspondents) and his spelling of proper names, but "to normalize other spellings and capitalization." One of the justifications offered is "a considerable gain in readability and appearance." The "considerable" is debatable, but readability is at any rate the standard argument for modernization—although the question remains why thorough modernization is not therefore undertaken to make the text even more readable. Another justification is more troublesome: "What is amusing and 'flavoursome' in small doses becomes wearisome in large, and it imparts an air of quaintness to a text which was not apparent to the correspondents themselves" (p. xxxvi). Surely no serious reader will regard any characteristics of a particular time in history as merely quaint; all characteristics are part of the evidence for historical understanding, and it is an insult to the reader to suggest that he can better perceive the intended tone of a letter if certain features of it have been altered for him.

Similar problems arise in many other literary editions. Theodore Besterman's edition of Voltaire's Correspondence (Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1953-65)[65] is famous because of its enormous size; the completion of an edition of 21,000 letters is indeed an accomplishment, to say nothing of bringing it out a second time in a revised "definitive edition" (Correspondence and Related Documents, 1968-76). Although Voltaire's alterations are recorded in notes, the treatment of the main text is disappointing: the first edition reports that apostrophes are inserted and "a minimum of capital letters and punctuation, where lacking" (p. xiii), and the revised edition follows the same policy (pp. xvii-xviii; Besterman says, "without attempting to modernize, I have introduced a measure of regularity"). The edition offers an example of the kind of inconsistency which partial modernization almost invariably leads to: "When Voltaire used an accent it has been reproduced even if

it now looks wrong, but when he omitted one it has been supplied."[66] Gordon S. Haight, in The George Eliot Letters (Yale University Press, 1954-55), says that his "principal concern has been the reader's convenience" (p. xxxv); though he retains spelling, he treats punctuation "a little more freely, adding or deleting an occasional mark to save rereading." In the same year Allan Wade, in The Letters of W. B. Yeats (Hart-Davis, 1954), argues for "correcting" both spelling and punctuation on the grounds that Yeats was poor at both. To retain Yeats's spelling would "in the long run appear merely tediously pedantic" (p. 16); Yeats's "faults" in punctuation, he says, "I have silently corrected, and I have not hesitated to introduce commas into sentences which, without them, are either ambiguous or almost meaningless" (p. 17)—obviously running the risk of giving those sentences meanings which Yeats did not intend. E. S. de Beer does not attempt to normalize punctuation in The Diary of John Evelyn (Clarendon Press, 1955) but does supply "without note a certain amount of punctuation" aimed "solely at intelligibility," arguing that for "strict linguistic study" one must consult the manuscripts (p. 68). In The Swinburne Letters (Yale University Press, 1959-62), Cecil Y. Lang says, "I have always tried to make readability my first concern" (p. xlix), and he follows the practice of reproducing printed texts "faithfully" but making some alterations in manuscript texts.

The same approach continues to appear in literary editions of the 1960s and 1970s. Harry T. Moore, in The Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence (Heinemann, 1962), comments on some of Lawrence's seeming deficiencies of punctuation and states, "rather than belabour the reader by calling attention to these peccadilloes I have quietly done what was needed" (p. xxi). Rupert Hart-Davis silently emends spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and paragraphing in The Letters of Oscar Wilde (Hart-Davis, 1962). Wilde's habitual dashes, he says, "make the letters difficult to read, and I have re-punctuated normally as the sense seems to demand" (p. xi). Wilde also liked to capitalize words beginning with "t" and "h," "presumably because he enjoyed making those particular capitals more than their lower-case equivalents." Hart-Davis believes that "to perpetuate this whim would only irritate the reader," and he has "followed the standard usage wherever the capital clearly has no significance." But he has just told us what significance those two capitals have. Why should a writer not be allowed to indulge his

"whims" in a letter? It is a perfect place for him to do so, because the text will not have to go through the hands of a publisher or a printer before reaching the intended audience. The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1966- ), edited by Andrew Hilen, is like some of the NHPRC editions in silently correcting "mere slips" but not altering errors or variations in proper names. "Occasionally," Hilen says, "I have silently provided punctuation, or deleted it, in order to clarify meaning" (p. 13). Leon Edel, in the Henry James Letters (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1974- ), makes silent corrections "where they were obviously called for" (p. xxxv), but in the letters of the young James he retains "relevant misspellings" because "they are a part of the flavor of the letters." Unfortunately he does not extend this argument to the later letters.

I do not wish to prolong this litany unnecessarily. I have merely tried to cite a sufficient number of examples to show that there is a considerable body of editors whose approach to the editing of letters and journals is in the spirit of the policies set forth in Boyd's Jefferson and the Harvard Guide. And it is by no means only the historians who fall into this group. While it is true that most of the NHPRC editions—with only a few exceptions—are of this type, there are certainly a great many literary editors whose practice coincides with that of the NHPRC editors.[67] Most of the editions mentioned are praiseworthy in many respects: most of them reflect thorough research and exemplary annotation. But their treatment of the actual texts is relatively casual and unsophisticated by comparison. It is clear, from this survey, that one widely followed approach to editing documents assumes that some modernization is essential and that a silently modernized or corrected text can serve most purposes of historical study. The assumption is made, however, without adequate consideration of the role which such features as spelling and punctuation play in private documents and the extent to which they constitute part of the total body of evidence that the historian needs to have at his disposal. What I have said about these editions can perhaps begin to indicate why their textual policies are bound to seem unsatisfactory to anyone who has given careful thought to textual matters and the nature of written communication.