University of Virginia Library

The Raverat Proofs of Mrs. Dalloway
by
Glenn P. Wright [*]

Revision, Virginia Woolf confessed to her diary on 6 January 1925, was "the dullest part of the whole business of writing; the most depressing & exacting" (III.4). From extant proofs and letters, we know that she often revised as she read proof and that the work left her discouraged and anxious, not only because she dreaded harsh criticism from her public, but also because she herself was her most demanding critic. After a novel was published, she rarely tinkered with the text—the notable exception being The Voyage Out (DeSalvo 110ff.)—but in any stage prior to publication Woolf did not hesitate to make extensive revisions.

Significant because it is the only one of her novels for which corrected proofs are extant, Mrs. Dalloway allows us to observe Woolf's revising at the proof stage as she struggled to put the novel into its final form. Complicating the analysis, however, there are two extant proofsets with Woolf's autograph corrections, and they do not always agree in their readings: one set used for the American (Harcourt) edition is now owned by the Lilly Library at Indiana

University; a second set, with fewer corrections, Woolf sent to her friend Jacques Raverat shortly before his death in March 1925. This proofset is now in the Special Collections Department at UCLA (Lukenbill 11-16). A third set, which was used for the British (Hogarth) edition, is not extant and presumably has been destroyed.[1]

A list of Woolf's revises for the Raverat proofs is provided in Appendix I, from which one may reconstruct readings of the proofsheets and observe Woolf's revising. Following each lemma appear transcriptions detailing this revision process, according to procedures set forth by Fredson Bowers in "Transcription of Manuscripts" (212-264). Because so many discrepancies exist between the extant proofs and their corrections, it is important not only to offer a description of them but also to attempt to catalogue them as a means of understanding how Woolf went about revising her novel and what chronology these revisions followed.

Woolf completed a typescript of Mrs. Dalloway in December 1924 in order that Leonard Woolf might read it while they were at Monks House in Sussex for the Christmas season (Diary II.325). Returning to London on 2 January, she mailed the typescript to the Edinburgh printing firm, R. & R. Clark, on or shortly before 6 January, where it was promptly set in type. Proofsheets dated 13-19 January were then returned to her for corrections. Allowing for the mails, it is likely she did not receive proofs until 23 or 24 January. Because Mrs. Dalloway was to be published simultaneously in London and New York by two different presses, Woolf received an additional set of proofs (in this case three), and she found herself in the unenviable position of having to correct two identical sets without introducing textual variants through transcription errors or unclear directions to printers in two different companies.

In late January Woolf determined to send her personal copy of the proofs to her friend Jacques Raverat, the French painter and former member of the "Neo-Pagans" at Cambridge in the early 1910s. She had not seen Raverat for some years, but she knew that he was near death, suffering with disseminated sclerosis so acute that his wife, Gwen Darwin (the granddaughter of Charles Darwin), had had to tie paint brushes onto his hands so that he could paint (Letters IV.423). Woolf also knew that Raverat would not live long enough to see Mrs. Dalloway in print, since the novel was scheduled to be published in May (the actual date of publication was 14 May 1925). Because Raverat had praised her collection of stories Monday or Tuesday and her earlier novel Jacob's Room, she wanted him to read what she considered her strongest work to date. Thus, in a letter to Raverat on 24 January, she wrote (III.154): ". . . if you'd really like it, I'll send out the proofs of my novel, which has just arrived, on condition you don't bother to write to me about it, or even read it; and don't mention it to anyone, for fear we should be asked for it, and it

wont be out till May. For no other human being in the world would I do this—why, I dont know. But I'm a little morbid about people reading my books."

In his biography of Virginia Woolf, Quentin Bell notes that this is the only time, to his knowledge, that she gave anyone except Leonard a set of proofs to read before her work was published (II.107). Trusting that Raverat would be a sympathetic audience, Woolf was worried nonetheless about some parts of Mrs. Dalloway and had complained to her diary that the novel was subject to criticism for being "disjointed because of the mad scenes not connecting with the Dalloway scenes" and because there was some "superficial glittery writing" (II.323). Her letter to Raverat indicates then that she felt some conflict between the urgency to send him the novel, even in an unfinished state, and the need to withhold her creation until its publication.

Soon after writing to Raverat, however, Woolf came down with the flu and was unable to work on the proofs for almost two weeks. On 5 February, she sent him an explanation (Letters III.163): "I was struck down with influenza the very day I wrote to you [i.e., 24 January], and am still in bed. Otherwise, I should have sent off my proofs before, but they were muddled up, and influenza makes me like a wet dish cloth—even to sort them was beyond me. I have left them uncorrected. Much has been re-written. Do a little re-writing on my behalf. Anyhow, don't cast me from you; and say nothing, or anything, as you like. (It will be sent tomorrow, 6th.)" Woolf could hardly have expected Raverat to do any "re-writing": not only was it physically impossible for him, but there would have been little time to receive a reply and incorporate changes if she planned to meet her May deadline. That she was too ill even to sort the proofs suggests that when she says "Much has been re-written," she is referring either to revisions of the manuscript (October-December 1924) or to proof corrections made only for the American and British editions (24 January-5 February 1925). Two statements in this letter are contradicted by the proofs themselves: (1) whereas Woolf states that they are "uncorrected," this is not the case; and (2) although she asserts they will be mailed on 6 February, it is unlikely that she could have made all revises for Raverat in one day.

Moreover, on 6 February the Woolfs left for Monks House where she corrected proofs, including the set for Raverat. On 31 pages of the Raverat proofs (R), Woolf made over 50 emendations and inserted between pages 224 and 225 a typescript revision of the scene in which Septimus Smith commits suicide. All revises, except for this typescript and two pencil emendations on pages 175 and 184, are made in the same bright purple ink she used in correcting proofs for the first American edition (A1) and presumably for the first British edition (E1) as well.[2] Given this evidence, we can conclude that all changes for Raverat were made after 6 February.

Jacques Raverat died on 7 March in Vence, France, a small town near Nice. Literally on his deathbed, he listened as his wife read aloud Mrs. Dalloway in proof, with Woolf's corrections; and later he dictated a letter praising the novel (Diary III.7n). This time frame indicates that Woolf could not have waited long after 6 February to mail the proofs to southern France, and since she returned to London on 10 February, a date in mid-February seems the most probable cut-off point. Relaxing in the seclusion of Monks House for four days, she would have made the corrections for Raverat on a first reading of the proofs.

This urgency must have encouraged Woolf to undertake a first-round of corrections at Monks House, and after mailing a partially corrected set to Raverat, to continue making revises for A1 and E1. From 6 January to 18 March, she made no entries in her diary—a hiatus explained not only by her illness which continued throughout this period (Letters III.167, 170), but also by her need to devote energy to revising proofs for both Mrs. Dalloway and The Common Reader. Corrected proofs for the latter were sent to R. & R. Clark on 18 March (Diary III.5), and the Woolfs left for a ten-day vacation in France on 26 March (Letters III.172). It is improbable that she would have taken this vacation if proofs for Mrs. Dalloway still remained to be corrected; thus, we may assume that by mid-March, final revises for A1 and E1 had been sent to New York and Edinburgh.[3] This schedule agrees with Woolf's plans to send her novel to Harcourt "about March," as she explained in her letter to Brace on 15 November 1924 (III.142).

The hypothesis that R reflects a first-round of general revises would account for the discrepancy in the number and extent of corrections between this set and the American proofs (Apr). Indeed, Apr shows hundreds of changes Raverat never saw, many of them minor revises in punctuation, capitalization, word-choice, and sentence structure. Curiously enough, however, Woolf did not hesitate occasionally to insert punctuation or change a capital on Raverat's set as well. Whereas she began corrections for the first editions as early as page 15, no changes were made on R until page 91. Here, revises agree in four instances, but Apr 91 includes an additional six revises—deletions, insertions, alterations in capitalization—which do not appear on R. Although it is possible that Woolf selected certain revises for Raverat and omitted others, or that she was haphazard in her corrections, these discrepancies

are better explained as changes made for A1 and E1 after mid-February.

This hypothesis is further supported by the change at R 248.17 where Woolf altered an upper-case "H" to lower case, just as she did on the other two proofsets. This is the only alteration in R between pages 225 and 271, although some forty revises occur in the same section of Apr, including two punctuation revises in the same line as the altered "H". It is unreasonable to suppose that she would alter one capital letter in the space of forty-six pages of R, omitting all the intervening substantive changes she made for A1 and E1 rather, we can assume that these revises represent changes made after mid-February. A similar argument can be made for her failing to correct a typographical error at R 260.6 where "her" appears for "he", thus rendering the sentence meaningless; likewise, at R 239.18 "nake" appears for "make"; both errors were corrected on Apr, and E1 gives the correct reading, evidence that suggests Woolf caught the errors on a second reading.

Although the Raverat proofs contain revises made early in the proof-correcting process, and although they are in no way as complete as those for the American edition, their importance is by no means diminished. They provide valuable evidence about Woolf's proof-correcting and the order in which these corrections were made; furthermore, the Raverat proofs help to clarify Woolf's intentions where her revises for A1 and E1 are ambiguous or missing.

In collating the proofsets to determine a sequence of corrections, certain hypotheses need to be set forth about the transcription process. Despite the tangles of the evidence, it is possible to unravel some of the strands if the following five principles about Mrs. Dalloway are accepted:

Some three-quarters of the R revises agree with those of Apr as well as with readings in E1; thus, we can assume that Woolf made the same corrections on the proofs from which E1 was set. In these instances no order of transcription can be determined. An interesting case occurs, however, at R 141.24 where Woolf inserted "she", then deleted the word, recognizing that she had intended the clause "she said, arranging the roses" three lines later at 141.27. This deletion represents a transcription error which Woolf caught, and it indicates that R was second or third in the transcription sequence, at least at this point. Apr, on the other hand, shows that Woolf emended the passage to read "she said, arranging the flowers"; then she deleted "flowers" and interlined "roses" above, in agreement with E1. Whether Apr was first or second to be corrected cannot be determined in this instance, but it does appear that here Woolf was transcribing her revises onto R from one of the other two sets.

Correcting three sets of proof simultaneously becomes exceedingly tedious. Given that Woolf was not temperamentally suited to this kind of work and that she still felt the effects of influenza, it is not surprising to find many transcription errors on the proofs. Because these errors can exist side by side with variants of Types II-V, some rationale has to be offered for distinguishing one from another. This rationale rests on the assumption that Woolf was intent upon correcting the Raverat proofs as quickly as possible, a job she finished in mid-February; subsequent revising was then done on the other two proofsets before mid-March.

In her article on the American edition of Mrs. Dalloway, E. F. Shields argues that Woolf continued revising the Hogarth proofs without informing Harcourt of her changes; later, however, Shields proposes that independent readings of both proofsets may have taken place (158, 173-174n). Ample evidence exists that Woolf continued revising the Hogarth proofs after she mailed the other two sets, but many of the variants Shields cites (159ff.) can be attributed to transcription errors, authorial oversights, or unclear directions which Hogarth and Harcourt printers interpreted differently.

Contemplating the burden of correcting three sets of proof, an author might spread out all three sets, read and correct one, transferring each correction as it is made to the other two sets. What this method gains in accuracy and consistency, however, it loses in speed and continuity. Although simultaneous transcription was used occasionally, it is more likely that Woolf corrected one set of proofs at a stint, then used it in transcribing revises. In the next stint she might well have picked up another proofset to correct first. It is reasonable to assume that she read Mrs. Dalloway proofs sequentially, in order of the sections or "chapters," as opposed to the order followed in correcting

proofs for The Common Reader, a group of essays which could be corrected in any order. When she marked a new section at Apr 89.19/20, she found a good stopping point; and on continuing her work, she began correcting the Raverat set in addition to the other two. The fact that no revises appear in R until page 91 indicates that she did intend to leave this set "uncorrected," as she says in her letter of 5 February; but whether from error or from recognition that extensive changes were necessary on all proofsets, at this point she began correcting all three.

Revises in R tend to occur in clusters within the last seven sections of the novel. As Shields points out (169-171), there are several discrepancies between A1 and E1 in the number of sections, so some clarification is necessary. Because of poor printing procedures at Harcourt where the printer left a "blank" line at the bottom margin, the reader of A1 must count lines on pages 124 and 228 to determine that a space occurs and a new section begins. In two other instances (Apr 142.21/22 and 281.6/7), Woolf failed to instruct the Harcourt printer where to divide the text, although she did mark the divisions for E1 and in one case (281.6/7) for Raverat. Since this visual device would not be significant for Raverat, we can assume that at R 281, Woolf either confused his set with Apr, or that she forgot to make the same change. Her error or oversight has been perpetuated for all American readers of the novel since 1925.[4]

The following table sets forth these discrepancies between the corrected proofs and the first editions of Mrs. Dalloway:

Structural Divisions in Mrs. Dalloway

                       

American Proofs (Apr)	Raverat Proofs (R)	Harcourt (A1)	Hogarth (E1)
23.4	23.4	19.13	23.4
45.11	45.11	42.13	45.11
74.11	74.11	72.9	74.11
86.23	86.23	85.4	86.23
89.19/20	(89.19/20)	88.3	89.20
99.8/9	(99.8/9)	97.18	99.7-8
125.26/27	(125.26/27)	* 124.26	125.27
(142.21/22)	(142.21/22)	[142.5/6]	142.22
227.15/16	(227.15/16)	* 228.26	227.15
248.12	248.12	250.19	248.12
(281.6/7)	281.6/7	[284.4/5]	281.5-6

The first four entries in this table show where blank lines occur on the proofs, indicating five of the novel's divisions. Because they occur in proof, we can surmise that Woolf indicated them on her typescript prepared in December 1924. Line numbers separated by a slash show where Woolf drew horizontal lines to instruct her printers at Harcourt and Hogarth to leave blank lines, as at Apr 89.19/20. Page references within parentheses indicate those instances in which Woolf failed to specify a break in the text; thus, she made no such mark on Raverat's proofs at 89.19/20. Although she did indicate a break in his text at 281.6/7, she failed to make the same correction on Apr. Square brackets around a page reference indicate where structural breaks should occur in A1, but do not. As can be seen from the table, E1 provides eleven divisions for twelve sections, whereas A1 shows only seven divisions clearly. The two entries marked by asterisks identify those places in A1 where the blank line Woolf requested on Apr is the last line in the printed text.

Although the division at R 281.6/7 is attributable to Woolf's error, that at E1 142.22 is problematic. To account for it, we must assume either that Woolf forgot to make the transcription from the Hogarth proofs to the American proofs, or that this break represents yet a later revision made after the American proofs were mailed to New York. Because the first two editions agree in other substantive changes made on page 142, the latter hypothesis is more compelling. For purposes of the present argument, however, it is important to establish only the following points:

This argument assumes, then, that ten of the eleven divisions were determined by mid-February and that the division at 142.22 was made late, probably after mid-March. Evidence for this chronology is admittedly scanty, but the hypothesis gains support from other substantive variants between A1 (where it agrees with Apr) and E1. In addition, all the structural divisions Woolf added occur in the last two-thirds of the novel, except for the division at A1 250.19 which had already been determined in the typescript. Since all of the Raverat revises also occur in the last two-thirds of the novel, it is reasonable to conclude that Woolf devoted most, if not all, of her attention in the first round of correcting to this portion of the novel. This would help explain why most of the R revises tend to occur in clusters within the last seven of the novel's twelve divisions.

Having established the location of these divisions, we may now turn to a closer examination of the R revises. Appendix I lists these in sequence by page and line number of the Raverat proofs, followed by corresponding references to the first American (Harcourt) edition. Since pagination in E1 follows closely that of the original proofs, references to that text are omitted. Using any reprint of A1, a reader can determine both the reading of the proofsheets and Woolf's revises for Raverat.

Many discrepancies in proofsheet revises can be classified according to the five types outlined above: (I) transcription error, (II) authorial oversight, (III) intentional omission, (IV) intentional inclusion, and (V) subsequent

revision after one or more proofsets were mailed. Although not all variants can be absolutely identified in this classification, the value for editorial proceedings is obvious. Because variants of all five types can exist side by side, the clearest and most revealing presentation is to examine these clusters of R revises, with attention to the most significant ones, as they occur within the structural divisions.

Sections I-V (7.1-89.19; A1 3.1-88.3)

As indicated above, Woolf did not begin her revises for Raverat until page 91, whereas she undertook revision for A1 and E1 as early as page 15. In this segment of A1 she emended some 50 passages on 37 pages of proof, making minor changes in punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and phrasing —many, but not all of which, agree with E1 readings. These Apr revises are, then, Type III or Type V emendations. As most of them are minor, it is possible that she simply decided not to include them on Raverat's proofset. But it is also possible that all were made after mid-February. At R 33.12, for instance, a blank of about eight spaces occurs either because the Hogarth printer could not read Woolf's typescript or because the typescript itself lacked a word; Woolf corrected the passage for both first editions, adding the word "purity" (A1 30.5), but Raverat had to fill in the blank on his own. Given the statement in the letter of 5 February that Raverat's set was to be left "uncorrected," the simplest hypothesis is that most of the 50 Apr revises in Sections I-V belong to the third type of variants, those intentionally omitted from Raverat's set.

Section VI (89.20-99.8; A1 88.4-97.17)

At Apr 89.19/20, Woolf divided her text and began the sixth section as Peter Walsh awakes from his nap in Regent's Park. Page 90 of the American proofs shows only minor revises (the deletion of two parentheses, an alteration in capitalization, and the insertion of the word "and"). Page 91, however, is heavily revised, and it is here that Woolf began correcting Raverat's set in addition to the other two, perhaps because she recognized that the revises were becoming so numerous or because she momentarily confused R with Apr. In Section VI a cluster of R revises occurs between pages 91 and 95, four of which are transcribed incorrectly.

The first passage emended for Raverat, in fact, is one of the most interesting for what it reveals about Woolf's proof-reading. Here, Peter Walsh recalls Clarissa Dalloway in a socially awkward moment at Bourton in the 1890s:

This passage contains revises of Types I and II where transcription errors and authorial oversights are clearly evident, and it suggests not only that the Hogarth proofs were the first to be corrected in this instance, but also that Woolf continued correcting this set later. For Apr she overlooked two deletions she had made for Hogarth: the final "-ness" of "hardness" and the alteration of the capital "I" of "It" to lower case. On its own authority, the Harcourt edition silently corrected these errors to preserve parallel stucture in the sentence (A1 89.11-15). Had Woolf been transcribing from either Apr or R, it is unlikely that she would have made the right correction for E1. The failure to delete "unimaginative" in Apr can be an authorial oversight (Type II), or its deletion in E1 can be seen as a subsequent revision (Type V), but either way we should consider the Hogarth edition as having the more reliable reading for this passage. The botched emendation renders the passage senseless in the Raverat text, ungrammatical in the Harcourt edition, but correct and readable in the Hogarth.

At Apr 93.7, Woolf changed the upper case "O" of "Old" to lower case, making a slash through the capital and writing "l.c." in the right margin. Since E1 supplies the same reading, we can assume that she made the change on the Hogarth proofs as well. For Raverat, she simply drew the slash through the upper case "O" and wrote "o" in the margin, in accordance with her practice not to use proofreader's symbols on his set. Thus in all cases the texts agree here that Peter Walsh goes in to dinner and sits beside "old Miss Parry." Two pages later, however, the following changes are made:

On the basis of the change at 93.7, it could be argued that the Harcourt edition provides a more reliable reading than the Hogarth in this instance. The failure of E1 to include the change has several possible explanations: (1) Woolf forgot to make the change on the Hogarth proofs; (2) she made the change for Hogarth, but the printer overlooked her revision; (3) she made the

correction for Hogarth, but on a subsequent reading decided to retain the original phrasing. Without the Hogarth proofs, it is impossible to determine the intended reading of this passage where variants of all five types may well exist side by side. Given the accuracy of the Hogarth printer (based on a collation of Apr and E1), the second option above has the least to recommend it. The third possible explanation is more speculative, but there are several instances in Apr where Woolf emended a passage only to write "stet" in the margin to signal retention of the original phrasing. If this is an authorial oversight (Type II) where Woolf forgot to make the correction for E1 which she had made for A1, then the various revises suggest Woolf's carelessness and confusion in trying to work with three sets of proof.

Section VII (99.9-(125.26); A1 97.19-* 124.26)

As the narrative point of view shifts from Peter's to Lucrezia Warren Smith's, Woolf marked a structural break at Apr 99.8/9, neglecting to make the same change for Raverat. Although no changes occur in this section of R, she did emend twenty-five passages in Apr, where we find revises in punctuation (14), simple deletions (5), insertions (6), and substitutions (9). These include six significant alterations on page 103 alone, none of which appear in R. This evidence suggests that most of these revises belong to Type V. (A collation of this section in E1 and A1 reveals 37 punctuation variants in passages where A1 agrees with Apr and with R. Since these represent additions to or deletions from the already set British proofs, they must have been made on a subsequent reading of the Hogarth proofset.)

Section VIII (125.27-[142.21]; A1 125.1-[142.5])

Section VIII is dominated by, but not exclusively restricted to the viewpoint of Septimus Smith, the paranoid young man whose insanity and suicide occupy half of the novel's thematic interest. For the Raverat proofs, Woolf emended nine passages on pages 128, 129, 132, 134, and 141, all of which could have been accomplished in one stint. In addition to these revises, she continued making alterations (Types III and V) for A1 and E1; the American proofs, for example, show changes in punctuation (10), capitalization (3), deletions (4), insertions (6), and substitutions (4). These revisions do not affect appreciably the characterization of Septimus Smith or the depiction of madness, but they do affect the stylistic presentation, and they do suggest the degree of Woolf's attentiveness to details.

However careful Woolf might have been, the tedium of correcting three sets of proof did produce numerous transcription errors. In addition to the example cited above from R 141.24, two other instances merit attention. Uncorrected, proof page 134 read: Rezia "could remember hearing how wonderful the shops were, from an Aunt who had lived in Soho." Woolf emended the sentence for the published editions by inserting "married and" after "had"; on the Raverat proofs, however, she misplaced the insertion after "who". Had the Raverat set been corrected first, this reading would likely have been transferred to the published editions. As this is a Type I revision,

we can assume that the Raverat set was second or, more likely, third to be corrected in this stint. After this transcription error, the next R change does not occur until seven pages later, where Woolf made another error, but this time on Apr. The original proof reading (141.10-11) gave: "It was at that moment (Rezia had left) the great revelation took place." The substitution "gone shopping" is made on all three proofsets, but only on the Raverat and the Hogarth proofs did Woolf correctly delete the participle "left"; for the American edition she incorrectly crossed through the verb phrase "had left" and thus produced the reading "(Rezia gone shopping)" that has appeared in every American copy of the novel since 1925 (A1 140.18; A2 93.6).

Section IX (142.22-227.15; A1 [142.6]-228.25)

Occupying almost a quarter of the novel, Section IX begins at noon as Septimus and his wife visit Sir William Bradshaw, roundly criticized for his unsympathetic diagnosis of Septimus's illness and for his prescription of rest and a "sense of proportion." The section contains as well a mildly satirical portrait of Lady Bruton who entertains Richard Dalloway at luncheon, and a condemning portrait of Miss Kilman who accompanies Elizabeth Dalloway shopping. It concludes about 6 P.M. with Dr. Holmes's visit to Septimus, who in a gesture of confusion and defiance hurls himself from the window— the climactic scene which Woolf sought to underscore by directing her American and British printers on page 227 to leave two blank lines. For Raverat she made no such revision.

Other changes made for Apr in this section are minor stylistic ones, occurring on nearly every page of the 85-page segment, but none of which appear on Raverat's set: revises in punctuation (29), capitalization (5), deletions (17), insertions (20), substitutions (18), spelling changes (7), and syntax (3); in addition, she indicated on page 209 that two paragraphs were to be run together, another alteration she failed to make for Raverat. Since this section was too long to be corrected in one stint, it is likely that Woolf read quickly over the whole, making occasional revises, until she arrived at the climactic scene, finding the final paragraphs unsuitable. Although the stylistic revises on Apr belong to Type III or, more probably, Type V, the typescript revision of the suicide scene inserted between pages 224 and 225 was almost certainly done at Monks House before 10 February.

A transcription of the typescript revision for Raverat's set is provided in Appendix II. Although hastily prepared and not carefully proofread, this single-spaced typescript probably served as copy for the similar typescripts inserted in the Hogarth and Harcourt proofsets. The left margin of the Raverat insertion is skewed; one sentence is heavily erased, almost illegible; and there are obvious typographical errors (e.g., "opeining" for "opening"; "throwin" for "throwing"; "stair case" for "staircase") which are corrected in the double-spaced typescript inserted in the Harcourt proofs.[5] The typescript

revision borrows liberally from an earlier passage (A1 139-140) which did not undergo any revision at the proof-reading stage, and Woolf continued to tinker with the passage after proofsets for Raverat and Harcourt were mailed, deleting the second half of the question, "Only human beings—what did they want of one?" The Hogarth edition (E1 225.12) prints: "Only human beings?" Although other variants between the proofsets and the published editions are less substantive for this depiction of suicide, the main point for this study is that the Raverat proofs allow the dating of this typescript revision to be placed at 6-10 February. A collation of the proofs and the first editions suggests further that in this case the Hogarth edition reflects Woolf's later changes.

Section IX contains twelve other passages which Woolf emended on Raverat's set, and two of these represent unique readings unavailable in either of the printed editions. Four others are correctly transcribed from the other proofsets, whereas the remaining six revises appear to be Type I changes, transcription errors, or Type II changes, authorial oversights. Furthermore, these revises cluster in what must have been short proofreading stints: four occur between pages 149 and 155; three, between pages 198 and 201; and three, between pages 220 and 224. No changes appear on R between pages 155 and 198—a lengthy section where Woolf made numerous changes on the other two proofsets—except for the two revised passages representing unique readings to the Raverat proofs. Both of these revises are made in pencil.

The alterations at R 175.4 and R 184.10-11 are problematic in that they are the only changes in pencil on the Raverat proofs, and there are no corresponding changes made for Apr.[6] That they are in pencil and that they occur relatively close to each other would suggest that they were made at the same reading of the Raverat proofs, a reading undertaken independently of those for the published editions. If Woolf rushed through Section IX in order to provide Raverat a more polished version of Septimus's suicide scene, then it is possible that she read this forty-page segment and made only two changes at the time. Returning later to the Harcourt and Hogarth proofsets, she made full revises for them (Type V).

The alteration at R 175.4 shows clearly that Woolf intended to delete the semicolon after "miracle" rather than merely the top half of the punctuation

mark: a slash is drawn through the entire mark, with the abbreviation "d/" pencilled in the right margin, her characteristic symbol for deletion. Although the semicolon is not altered at Apr 175.4, the American printer nevertheless deleted it—a fortuitous error which produces the sentence Woolf probably intended.[7] The first Hogarth edition, on the other hand, prints "miracle," which would suggest that Woolf may have made an alteration on the Hogarth proofs similar to the one she made for Raverat, but that the British printer misinterpreted her directions and deleted only the top half of the mark. In this case the alteration at R 175.4 represents the most reliable reading in the proof corrections, and we can conclude that the omission of this revision in Apr is an authorial oversight. The hypothesis that Woolf intentionally omitted all the other revises made for Apr between pages 155 and 198 and included for Raverat only the one change in a punctuation mark makes her appear more haphazard and idiosyncratic than she was. Rather, it is more plausible that these Apr revises were made after mid-February.

The second pencilled revision occurs at R 184.10-11 where Woolf inserted the word "could" and altered "understood" to "understand" to produce the following passage in which Clarissa Dalloway imagines asking Peter Walsh (italics mine):

If Woolf pencilled in this change only on the Raverat set as she read quickly through this portion of Section IX, it is not unlikely that she overlooked it later when she took up her pen to correct the other two proofsets. In context, the reading provided by R is superior to that in the two first editions, not only because it is consistent with the verb tense of the subsequent sentence, but also because it is more appropriate to the character of Peter Walsh. The omission of this revision for both A1 and E1 appears, then, to be another authorial oversight (Type II). As in the previous case (R 175.4), the Raverat proofs here present the preferred reading.

In addition to these cases of authorial oversight, instances of transcription errors occur in Section IX. Attempting to account for the variants produced by these errors, E. F. Shields cites two cases and argues that E1 produced variants which are "perhaps the result of changes which Virginia Woolf made for the Hogarth edition on the final proof-sheets" (160). Shields did not have access to the Raverat proofs, and thus her argument cannot account for existing evidence: it now becomes clear that many of the variants between E1 and A1 resulted from Woolf's transcription errors. Thus at R 198.12-13, Woolf inserted the phrase "made one feel so small" after deleting "was quite different from any one she knew." The same change was made on Apr, but

not apparently for E1 which reproduces both the original verb phrase and the inserted revision (198.11-13): Similarly, at R 200.9-10, the insertion "she said" was probably intended for the Hogarth printer, but Woolf confused the proofsets and made the change for Raverat instead. In both cases the transcription errors indicate that the Hogarth proofs were, in this stint, last in the series to be corrected, and further, that the Harcourt readings are more reliable in these instances.

Section X (227.16-248.12; A1 229.1-250.18)

In this section Woolf made no changes on the Raverat proofs whereas she altered twenty passages in the corresponding section of Apr. Again, these are minor stylistic revises: insertions of words or punctuation (12), deletions (7), substitutions (9), altered capitalization (3), and the correction of the typographical error at 239.18. Since there is no cogent argument to explain why Woolf would have intentionally retained a typographical error on Raverat's proofset, we can conclude that this revision was made after mid-February. This is likely to be the case with the other changes made for Apr in this section.

Section XI (248.13-281.6; A1 250.20-[284.4])

The Raverat revises in Section XI cluster between pages 271 and 281, with only one alteration in capitalization made at R 248.17. The Harcourt proofs, on the other hand, show fifteen altered passages between pages 248 and 271, further evidence that Woolf continued correcting that set after she mailed the Raverat proofs. More significant are the revises unique to the Raverat proofset:

     

Apr reading with Woolf's changes . . . closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. (A1 281.2-3)	Revisions made only on R . . . closeness draws apart; rapture fades, one is alone. (R 278.3-4)
. . . revive, send roaring up that immeasurable delight, rubbing stick to stick, one thing with another, she must have perished. But that young man had killed himself. (A1 282.1-4)	. . . revive [∧] send roaring up that insolence [∧] that levity [∧] that immeasurable delight, rubbing stick to stick, one thing with another—she must have perished. She escaped. But that young man had killed himself. (R 279.2-5)
She had wanted success. Lady Bexborough and the rest of it. (A1 282.10-11)	She had wanted success,—Lady Bexborough and the rest of it. (R 279.13-15)

The last of these three passages contains merely a punctuation variant resulting from a transcription error when Woolf confused the Harcourt and the Raverat proofs. The Hogarth edition omits the dash Woolf inserted at R 279.14, but does show the comma she inserted after "success". (No alterations were made in this passage on Apr. The dash could have been added on the Hogarth proofs, then deleted later; or Woolf simply could have made a transcription error here. Cf. E1 279.11-13.) It was generally her practice to use the dash without the preceding comma, although instances where both marks appear together can be found in A1 which in all cases follows Apr: 8.8, 24.26, 69.22, 77.22, 109.1, 117.21, 119.21, 140.6, 198.18, and 206.15. Variants between E1 and A1 occur in three of these cases (109.1, 117.21, and 206.15) where E1 deletes the comma before the dash, presumably at Woolf's instructions on a later reading of the Hogarth proofs. Available evidence thus points to Woolf's inconsistency and suggests that, at times, she failed to attend carefully to punctuation. That she included this revision on Raverat's set, but made no changes on Apr, marks another instance where she confused the proofsets, intending to make the punctuation change for the Harcourt edition.

The addition of the words "insolence [∧] that levity [∧] that" at R 279.2 may represent a revision that Woolf wrote out hastily, omitting the commas, but then rejected for the published editions; or it could represent an authorial oversight, if at this point she was transcribing her revises from R to the other two proofsets. In the absence of the Hogarth proofs, it is necessary to resort to an argument based on context. The R addition alters appreciably the character of Clarissa Dalloway in ways for which the novel itself offers little justification. Although she admits that she can be petty, envious, ambitious, and easily irritated, Clarissa is hardly insolent or contemptuously rude. Having flouted some social proprieties in her youth, as a mature woman she is the epitome of civility. If the R addition represents merely a momentary experiment with a new phrase, then Woolf's rejection of it for E1 and A1 could be seen as her attempt to maintain this consistency of character.

The alteration at R 278.3-4, like that at R 279.2, can be considered an initial revision rejected later in favor of the original: after all, the shift in tenses produced by the revision is an error Woolf rarely committed. Or the failure to include this alteration for the published editions can be attributed to authorial oversight: the R changes are not made in the margins of the proofpage, but interlined or written over the original letters; thus, they could have been easily overlooked in transcription. A third possibility, however improbable, is that these are Type IV revisions, changes Woolf intentionally included for Raverat but not for the published editions. Her awareness that Raverat's death was near might have stayed her hand in deleting these revises or might have encouraged her to alter the phrasing to render it more immediate, more poignant. Since editorial decisions based on R readings alone are tenuous, it is best to consider the changes at R 278.3-4 as rejected revises and to follow the phrasing of the published editions.

Section XII (281.7-293.14; A1 [284.5]-296.20)

The horizontal line Woolf drew between lines 6 and 7 on page 281 of the Raverat proofs clearly delineated the final section for him, but never for the American readers of the novel for whom the mark was no doubt intended.

Nine pages later she made one minor revision, the only change in this final section of the Raverat proofs. Here the reference is to Sally Seton (R 290. 18-21): Both the Harcourt edition (following Apr) and the Hogarth edition agree in their readings: "a peace which men and women never gave her" (A1 293.26-294.1; E1 290.21). Unique to the Raverat proofs, this revision reflects either an authorial oversight or a change later rejected for the published texts. In context, the revised passage presents a more cynical view of Sally Seton; and again, consistency of characterization would argue for retention of the original passage. In this last section of Apr, Woolf made two minor deletions on pages 283 and 293, and added the words "great grandfather" at 283.20 which produced an ambiguous sentence in A1 (286.17-20): "And Sally used to be in rags and tatters. She had pawned her grandmother's ring which Marie Antoinette had given her great-grandfather to come to Bourton." As Shields points out (162), E1 follows a different set of revises here, attributing the ring to Sally's great-grandfather, omitting the reference to the grandmother, and making it clear that Sally, not Marie Antoinette, had come to Bourton. These revises were probably made after mid-February, and the one change at R 290.18-21 was most likely overlooked as Woolf hurried to complete the revisions for Raverat.

Conclusion

This argument assumes that Woolf read quickly through the proofs of Mrs. Dalloway while she was at Monks House, 6-10 February 1925, making over 50 revises on the proofsheets for Raverat, including the substitution of a 200-word paragraph at page 225. Several long segments of the novel, most noticeably pages 7-90 and pages 155-198, are left virtually uncorrected in R, but not in the other two proofsets. The clustering of R revises further suggests that these proofs were read sequentially in brief stints, corresponding roughly to the twelve sections of the novel as represented correctly in the first Hogarth edition. Variants between the extant proofsets and between the two first editions are attributable largely to transcription errors, to authorial oversights, and to subsequent revisions after Woolf mailed proofs to Raverat and to Harcourt, although some revises were intentionally omitted (or perhaps included) for Raverat. At times Woolf could be attentive to minute details in phrasing and punctuation; at others she could be haphazard and careless.

Correcting proof is always a tedious business, and Woolf's work was made more difficult by having to work under the pressure of self-imposed deadlines and during an illness. Since the Raverat proofs were the first to be mailed, and since Woolf must have returned to the other two sets for further corrections, the Raverat set might be considered merely a literary curiosity. It is more than this, however, because it offers valuable evidence about Woolf's correcting and revising her novel, and it allows the dating of certain of her

emendations. Most significant, the Raverat proofs help clarify many of Woolf's revises for the Hogarth and Harcourt editions; thus, no editor or careful reader of Mrs. Dalloway could afford to ignore this proofset.

Appendix I
Raverat Proofs of Mrs. Dalloway: List of Alterations

References to the Raverat proofs are cited by page and line number, followed by page and line citations for corresponding passages in the first Harcourt edition (A1). Pagination in the first Hogarth edition (E1) follows closely that of the proofs.

• 91.1/89.13 nothing. but . . . him] period not del.; 'but' interl. bef. 'It' ('I' del.); 'that annoyed him;' interl. ab. 'manner;' with guideline bef. semicolon
• 91.1-2/89.14 her timid; hard;] alt. fr. 'her timid hardness;' ('her' underscored in pencil); semicolon insrtd. bef. 'hardness' (final 'ness' del.)
• 91.2/89.14 arrogant] 'something' del. bef. 'arrogant'
• 91.10/89.22 afraid. and Clarissa did frighten people)] '& Clarissa did frighten people)' insrtd. aft. 'afraid.'
• 92.5-6/90.17-18 in, he] 'he always saw through Clarissa' insrtd. for del. 'and he had his ways of making her feel it.' ('it.' not stricken in del.)
• 92.13/90.25 looking] final 'ing' insrtd. for del. 'ed'
• 92.13-21/90.25-91.6 (The place . . . bird-cages.)] parens. insrtd.
• 93.7/91.19-20 felt . . . old] 'had sat down by' insrtd. with guideline over del. period aft. 'felt'; 'o' insrtd. aft. del. 'O'
• 93.14-16/91.25-26 botanist. . . . shoulders] 'marching off in thick boots with a black tin collecting box slung between her shoulders' insrtd. aft. del. '(she wore always a black tin collecting-box slung between her shoulders; marched off in thick boots with a great stick.)'; period aft. 'botanist' not del.
• 94.14/92.24-25 2something] 'something' insrtd. bef. 'gentle, different' ('different' del.)
• 94.28/93.13-14 hurt her] 'after seeing her with Dalloway' insrtd. aft. 'her'
• 95.6/93.18-19 wood; [h]e talking] semicolon ab. undel. period; 'H' del. without adding lower case; final 'ing' insrtd. for del. 'ed'
• 95.21/94.7-8 Aunt Helena—poor Miss Parry!] 'Miss Parry' insrtd. for del. 'old lady'
• 128.12/127.15 mother;] 'she lied;' insrtd. aft. semicolon
• 128.21/127.24 men called Smith;] 'called Smith' insrtd. bef. semicolon
• 129.16/128.21 Pole,] comma added beside del. semicolon
• 129.25/129.3 time,] comma (?) insrtd.
• 132.15-16/131.20 him;] followed by del. 'he could not combine things'
• 134.8/133.12 who married and] 'married &' insrtd. with caret aft. 'who'
• 141.10/140.18 Rezia had gone shopping] 'gone shopping' insrtd. aft. del. 'left'
• 141.24/141.6 room.] followed by insrtd. 'she' (later del.)
• 141.27/141.9 already.] 'she said, arranging the roses' insrtd.; period not del.
• 149.5/148.19 then . . . Bradshaw] 'Holmes & Bradshaw' insrtd. aft. del. 'his torturers'
• 149.22/149.10 Trust] insrtd. for del. 'Leave'
• 154.16/154.7-8 If . . . support] 'him' insrtd. without caret; probably intended to read 'If they failed him'
• 155.3-4/154.21-22 But . . . man] 'But Rezia Warren Smith cried, walking down Harley Street that she did not like that man' insrtd. in bottom margin for del. 'But Rezia Warren Smith cried out, walking Harley Street, that she had been deserted.'
• 175.4/175.9 miracle] followed by del. semicolon (del. in pencil with del. symbol in margin)

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• 184.10-11/184.17 woman . . . understand] 'could' insrtd. in pencil aft. 'woman'; final 'and' insrtd. in pencil for del. 'ood'
• 198.12-13/198.24-25 Kilman . . . small.] 'made one feel so small.' insrtd. for del. 'was quite different from any one she knew.'
• 200.9-10/200.23-24 people . . . more] 'she said' insrtd. bef. 'more' ('much' del.); quot. mrks. omitted
• 201.2/201.17-18 Beauty . . . 1gone] 'youth,' del. aft. 'Beauty,'; 'Youth had gone.' insrtd. without caret
• 220.11-12/221.11-12 up;] followed by 'first one thing, then another, she built it up, sewing.' insrtd. for del. 'the house, the frail card house.'
• 221.16-17/222.17 And . . . 2him] 'She too could help him.' insrtd. aft. undel. 'And she could say anything to him.'
• 224.15/225.16 him . . . up] 'coming up' insrtd. aft. 'him.' with guideline over final period
• 225.1-17/226.2-24 See transcription in Appendix II.
• 248.17/250.23 2how] 'h' alt. fr. 'H'
• 271.2-3/273.21-22 Parry . . . . lady!] 'Wonderful old lady!' moved with caret from beginning of next paragraph
• 271.3/273.23 Lady Bruton] insrtd. for del. 'She'
• 271.22/274.16 Milly] 'i' over 'o'
• 276.20-21/279.17-18 Oh . . . party] 'death' del. aft. 'Oh'; comma added for del. period aft. 'Clarissa'; 'i' ab. del. 'I'; 'my' insrtd. for del. 'her'
• 277.27/280.25 This . . . . Death] 'This he had preserved.' insrtd. bef. 'Death'
• 278.3/281.2 draws] Proofpage read 'drew'; 'a' ab. 'e'; final 's' added
• 278.4/281.3 fades] Proofpage read 'faded'; final 's' over 'd'
• 278.4/281.3 one is] 'is' interl. ab. del. 'was'
• 278.7-10/281.6-8 "If . . . white.] 'That evening coming downstairs to Sally,' del. bef. '"If'; 'she had said to herself,' moved with guideline aft. 'happy."' [period not del.]; 'once coming down in white' insrtd. aft. 'herself' [comma omitted aft. 'once']
• 278.16/281.13-14 outrage . . . forcing] 'he would' del. bef. 'forcing' (final 'ing' ab. del. 'e')
• 278.25/281.23 end . . . incapacity;] 'to be walked with serenely' insrtd. aft. 'end' (no comma added); 'one's overwhelming incapacity;' not del.
• 278.27/281.24 an] 'an' interl. ab. del. 'that'
• 279.2/282.1 revive] followed by del. dash (no comma added)
• 279.2/282.1 1that] 'insolence that levity that' insrtd. aft. 'that'
• 279.6-9/282.5 disgrace.] followed by del. 'Was he married? Had he left a wife to go on, to face the Bradshaws (how much they stood for!) alone?'
• 279.14/282.10 success,—] comma over del. period; dash insrtd.
• 279.28/282.23-24 sleep. . . . window.] 'She walked to the window.' insrtd. aft. 'sleep.'
• 280.9-10/283.7 quickly. . . . tapering] 'by' insrtd. aft. 'quickly' (final period not del.); 'There were' del. bef. 'tapering'
• 281.6/284.4 room.] Horizontal line drawn across proofpage below line 6; 'space' written in rt. margin as direction to printer to leave line 7 blank
• 290.21/293.26-294.1 women . . . her] 'would never give' insrtd. for del. 'never gave'

Appendix II
Transcription of Typescript Inserted in Raverat Proofs (225.1-17)

The following transcription attempts to do two things: (1) to note the revisions Woolf made when she deleted a paragraph in the Raverat proofs (225.1-17) and replaced it with the typescript transcribed here; and (2) to record the variants between

the two extant proofsets and the two first editions for this revised passage. For clarity, two methods of recording are used. An asterisk marks the beginning of a revision, and the bracketed material describes the alteration from the original proof reading to the Raverat proofs. (A double asterisk indicates an intervening revision.) Notes indicated by superscript letters record variants between R and the Harcourt proofs (Apr), the first Harcourt (A1) and the first Hogarth (E1) editions. A wavy line [˜] indicates the same word appears in the text cited. No attempt is made to preserve Woolf's spacing or strikeovers on the typescript inserted in the Raverat proofset. See A1 226.2-24; E1 224.20-225.16.

burst open the door. Holmes would * saya [comma omitted] * =Inb [typographical error for '"In'] a funk, eh?" Holmes would get him. But no; not Holmes; not Bradshaw. * Getting up rather unsteadily, hopping indeed from foot to foot, he considered Mrsc Filmer's nice clean bread knifed with 'Bread'e carved on the handle. Ah, but one mustn't spoilf that. The gas fire? But it was too late now. Holmes was coming,g Razors he might have got, but Rezia, who always did that sort of thing, had packed them. [insrtd. aft. 'Bradshaw'] There remained * only [insrtd.] the window, the large Bloomsbury * lodging [hyph. omitted] househ window, the tiresome, the troublesome, and rather melodramatic business of opeiningi the window and * throwinj himself out [insrtd. for del. 'getting out on to the sill']. It was their idea of tragedy, not his or Rezia's (for she was with him) *. [period insrtd. for del. semicolon] Holmes and Bradshaw * likedk that sort of thing [insrtd. for del. 'always insisted upon scenes like this']. * (He sat on the sill)1 ** But he would waitm till the very last moment. He did not want to die. [insrtd.] ** Life ['L' alt. fr. 'l'] was [insrtd. for del. 'As for himself (he had raised himself on to the sill now—could see Mrs. Filmer's pots were down below) life was'] * good; the sunn hot [insrtd. for del. 'pleasant, the air cooler after the heat; he had no wish to die']. * Only human beings—what did theyo want of one?p [insrtd.; 'they' underscored in ink] * Coming down the stair caseq opposite an old man stopped and stared at him. [insrtd. for del. 'But look at the old man in the house opposite, staring at him!'] * Holmes was at the door [insrtd. for del. 'Human nature—Here was Holmes']. * "I'll give it you!" he cried, and [insrtd. for del. 'He'] flung himself * vigorously, [comma added] * violently,r [comma added] down on to * Mrss [alt. fr. 'Mrs.'] Filmer's area railings.

Notes for Appendix II

• a say] ˜ Apr, A1; ˜, E1
• b=In] "˜ Apr, A1, E1
• c Mrs] ˜ Apr; ˜. A1, E1
• d bread knife] ˜˜ Apr, A1; ˜-˜ E1
• e 'Bread'] '˜' Apr; "˜" A1, E1
• f spoil] ˜ A1, E1; spoilt Apr
• g coming,] ˜. Apr, A1, E1
• h Bloomsbury lodging house] ˜˜˜ Apr; ˜-˜˜ A1; ˜˜-˜ E1
• i opeining] opening Apr, A1, E1
• j throwin] throwing Apr, A1, E1
• k liked] ˜ Apr, E1; like A1
• l sill)] ˜) Apr; ˜.) A1, E1
• m wait] ˜ A1, E1; wiat Apr
• n good; the] ˜. The Apr, A1, E1
• o they] underscrd. in ink Apr; ital. A1; del. E1
• p Only . . . one?] Only . . . want ['of one' del. Apr]? A1; Only . . . beings? E1
• q stair case] staircase Apr, E1; stair-| case A1
• r violently,] ˜ [∧] Apr, A1, E1
• s Mrs] ˜ Apr; ˜. A1, E1

Works Cited

• Bell, Quentin. Virginia Woolf: A Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.
• Bowers, Fredson. "Transcription of Manuscripts: The Record of Variants." Studies in Bibliography, 29 (1976): 212-264.
• DeSalvo, Louise A. Virginia Woolf's First Voyage: A Novel in the Making. Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980.
• Kirkpatrick, B. J. A Bibliography of Virginia Woolf. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

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• Lukenbill, Dan. "UCLA's Mrs. Dalloway Proofs, Ex Libris Majl Ewing." UCLA Librarian February 1982: 11-16.
• Shields, E. F. "The American Edition of Mrs. Dalloway." Studies in Bibliography, 27 (1974): 157-175.
• Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf. 5 vols. Ed. Anne Olivier Bell. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977-84.
• ____. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. 6 vols. Ed. Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautman. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975-82.
• ____. Mrs. Dalloway. London: Hogarth Press, 1925. (E1)
• Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1925. (A1)
• Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. (A2)

Notes