D4. "Standard Edition" (London: Constable,
1922)
[_]
D4. "Standard Edition." Whether to
describe a collected set at a single location, or to take up each volume
separately at the point where it would have been described if it had not been
connected with a set, is a question that should be decided individually for
each bibliography. More important is the recognition that the individual
volumes of sets must be entered at two places, once with a primary entry
and once with a cross-reference. Because some economy, and perhaps
clarity as well, results from treating an entire set at one place, I have
chosen here simply to make a reference to the place—in section V,
devoted to collected sets—where the Constable edition is described.
The
same treatment is accorded two subeditions (i.e., printings bearing another
publisher's imprint or series designation) of the entire set (D4c, D4d). But
the two subeditions of Redburn alone (D4a, D4b) are best
treated here. On the arrangement and numbering of entries for
subeditions, see Tanselle 1984, esp. pp. 9-20, 37. (Some might
argue—and they would have a point—that the original
printing, with
the Constable imprint, should be numbered "D4a," allowing "D4" to refer
unambiguously to the entire edition, encompassing all its subeditions. On
the other side is the awkwardness of making the originating publisher's
printings appear to be a subedition. Neither solution is entirely happy, and
both of them can be defended.)
Redburn constitutes Vol. 5 of the Constable "Standard
Edition" of 1922-24. For an account of this edition and its subeditions, see
V1. The Constable setting of Redburn has been reprinted not
only in the two reprintings
of the entire set (D4c, D4d) but separately from the collected set as No. 36
in the series "Constable's Miscellany" (D4a) and in an American subedition
of it published by Richard R. Smith (D4b).
D4a. "Constable's Miscellany" Subedition (London,
1929)
[_]
D4a. "Constable's Miscellany" subedition. This
entry
is an example of a condensed form of description that I suggest might be
used for all editions of Melville's works after 1891, the year of his death.
The idea of shifting, at some point in a bibliography, to a less detailed form
of description—a concept sometimes called, following Falconer
Madan,
"the degressive principle"—has been much debated. By far the most
thoughtful treatment of it is to be found in Bowers 1969 (supplemented by
Tanselle 1984, pp. 20-28). The decision where to curtail description (if full
description throughout is not deemed feasible) involves thinking through the
primary purpose of the bibliography: the line would be drawn at one point
if the focus is on textually important editions, at another if the aim is to
write a biography in bibliographical form, and at still another if the
emphasis is on how printers and publishers have handled the work of a
classic author. But wherever the line is
drawn, one must understand that shorter descriptions do not necessarily
mean less research: one is still trying to establish and report certain facts,
and the space finally given to them does not necessarily reflect the amount
of time required to establish them. Furthermore, the condensed descriptions
should still have logic and balance of their own. In the form proposed here
some attention is paid to paper and to binding (nothing need be said about
typography in an entry for a subedition, unless the typography is altered
photographically, electronically, or by means of a Monotype roll); the
recording of contents is selective, but the signature and pagination
collations, being indispensable, are treated no less fully than they would be
for a nineteenth-century edition. No precise form for condensed descriptions
can, or should, be prescribed; the description I offer here is intended only
as one example of a highly condensed and yet relatively well-rounded
bibliographical
account.
[within rule frame] CONSTABLE'S MISCELLANY | OF
ORIGINAL & SELECTED | PUBLICATIONS ["Constable's
Miscellany" device] IN LITERATURE | REDBURN | HIS FIRST |
VOYAGE | BY | HERMAN | MELVILLE | CONSTABLE · AND
· CO · LIMITED · LONDON [iii]
(177 X 108 mm): 1
6
2-13
16
14
10, 208 leaves, pp. [2] i-vii
viii-x
1 2-403 404. (Signatures of the original
Constable
printing—imposed for gathering in eights—are present.) Table
of
contents, vii-x; text, 1-403. White wove
unwatermarked paper; total bulk 16 mm. Medium yellow green (120) cloth,
stamped in gold on the spine. Dust jacket printed on white in strong red
(12) and medium yellow green (120), the front flap identifying this title as
No. 36 in "Constable's Miscellany" and indicating the price as 3
s. 6 d. Copies: 1. ICN. M66-2757-196. 2.
—.
M70-195 (lacking first leaf).
Entered PC 20 April 1929.
D4b. Richard R. Smith Subedition (New York,
1930)
[_]
D4b. Richard R. Smith subedition. This entry, on
the
transatlantic counterpart to the preceding subedition, illustrates how one
condensed description builds on another. (If the Smith publication were an
issue of the "Constable's Miscellany" printing and not a separate printing,
it would not receive an entry number and would be described in a
subsection of D4a—following the principle of treating printings as
entities, explained in Tanselle 1984, p. 18.)
REDBURN | HIS FIRST VOYAGE | BY | HERMAN MELVILLE
| [publisher's device] | RICHARD R. SMITH INC. | NEW YORK
[iii]
The same as the "Constable's Miscellany" subedition (D4a), except
that (1) p. iv reads 'First American Edition
1930'
and identifies the printer as Lowe & Brydone Printers Ltd., London,
and
(2) the binding is medium blue (182) cloth, printed in yellow on the spine.
Dust jacket not seen. Copy: 1. ICN. M67-3824-7.
Announced PW 8 March 1930.
D4c. Russell & Russell Subedition (New York,
1963). See V1a.
D4d. Meicho Fukyu Kai Subedition (Tokyo, 1983).
See V1b.