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The Manuscript "Nethermere II": Paper Analysis
My analysis of "Nethermere II" accounted for the following features: the paper make, whether or not the tear marks down one side of a page or a torn watermark could be matched with that of another page elsewhere in a quire, evidence of stapling to indicate whether bound or unbound quires were used, the scribal style of the page and quire numbers, the principal scribe on each page, and the layers of revision in different scribal styles and ink types.
Page and quire numbers proved to be very unreliable as scribal indicators because even when characteristic features of a sequence of numbers could be listed, they could not be linked to any particular person. There was no apparent consistency to the way a given scribe would write his or her numbers. The numbers must, however, have been written quite late in the history of the manuscript, because although there are sections transferred from earlier drafts there are no sequences of re-numbered pages. It appears that in early drafts of the novel Lawrence did not number individual pages as he wrote them. The stapled and folded quires were simply numbered with roman numerals. A similar procedure was followed for Lawrence's 1909 play A Collier's Friday Night. The pages of this manuscript are unnumbered and grouped entirely by folded sections.[10] This system may also be seen in the surviving pages from "Laetitia I" and "Laetitia II" (see WP 328). When Lawrence realised the extent of his later revisions to the novel he must have decided to number each page; a page which needed copying out could then be easily identified by its number, torn out and thrown away, and the new page inserted into the quire at the correct location. Bruce Steele and Helen Baron show that Lawrence continued to use this system for The Trespasser and Sons and Lovers. The situation is complicated with The White Peacock, however, by the other people who helped Lawrence copy pages, as will be explained later.
I also paid attention to the content of the revisions; in both versions of "Laetitia", for example, George's family was named "Worthington". This name may be found corrected to "Saxton" in several places of "Nethermere I", which suggests that these pages belong to an earlier period of composition than other sections of the manuscript where Worthington is never used, but Saxton occurs instead in the body of the text. It is not known exactly when Lawrence decided to change the name from Worthington to Saxton. Since Holt and Mason's pages always use Saxton, the change must have occurred before about mid-September 1909, the earliest probable date at which they became involved in the revision process.
Six makes of paper were identified in the manuscript and labelled from A to F. Their details are listed in Table 2 in the Appendix. There are no noticeable differences in their colour, see-through and finishing features. All the
Table 1 shows the chronological development of the manuscript and identifies its various components by paper type, principal scribe and layers of revision. The page numbers refer to the manuscript (MS) and the Cambridge Edition of The White Peacock (WP). Dotted lines connecting the column for September-October 1909 to the column for February-April 1910 indicate those pages which were copied by Agnes Mason and cannot be firmly dated. Agnes Holt and Mason had very distinctive handwritings and made no revision marks to the manuscript. Corke's handwriting was noticeably rounded and she always used dark blue-black ink and a thick nib. Lawrence made revisions in three different styles: in pencil, in black ink with a fine nib (which I call the 'thin' style), and in a black ink written with a markedly thicker nib (which I call the 'thick' style).
In the remainder of this paper I justify in detail the datings made in Table 1. My evidence relies on two assumptions; firstly, that it is a strong possibility that Lawrence would use only one particular paper type over a given period; secondly, that revisions of a particular 'style' were all made at the same time. Some pages have as many as four levels of revision, but the styles may easily be distinguished.
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