Determination of Edition, Impression, Issue and State
As I have already indicated, the terms "edition," "impression," "issue,"
and "state" apply to numbers of periodicals just as they apply to books. Care
should of course be taken to avoid any possible confusion that might arise
from using the term "issue" to refer to numbers of periodicals.
It is reasonable to assume that many nineteenth-century periodicals will
exist in several forms, each of which represents a distinct publishing unit. A
complication arises, however, when one attempts to determine the
bibliographical status of the same setting of type as it appears in an individual
number of the periodical, and as it appears, along with other numbers, in a
volume manufactured and sold by the publisher. A number presented in
different wrappers (as is the case when the same sheets are distributed in
Britain and the United States) is easily recognizable as comprising different
issues of the same printed matter. But when the periodical number appears
along with several other numbers in a cloth case, some additional
considerations apply. The numbers that make up a bound volume may each
have their own printing history; a bound volume may thus represent an
additional issue of one number, and a new edition of another, so that there is
no one way to categorize the volume as
a whole.[26] The treatment of volumes will
thus vary depending upon whether the bibliographer's interest is in a single
number (in which case one would not have to be overly concerned with the
status of other parts of the bound volume in which the number appears), in
several or all of the periodical's numbers, or in the collection of numbers that
resulted from active aggregation. When one is concerned with a single
number that was presented by the publisher both in wrappers and in a bound
volume, the latter version could be designated "issue in volume" as long as
the text of the number in both circumstances (wrappers and bound) derives
from the same setting and impression of type. If, however, one's focus is not
limited to individual numbers but extends to the volume publication itself, the
term "volume issue" could be used to designate the new publication of a
group of numbers, the various histories of which can still form part of the
volume's
description. Thus the terms used by the bibliographer will vary, depending on
whether the history of numbers (including their history as component parts of
volumes) or
the history of volumes (with more or less emphasis on the prior history of
individual numbers) is of primary concern.
A similar situation exists regarding the application of "edition" and
"impression" to bound volumes. If the bibliographer's unit of study is the
individual number, it seems reasonable that the determination of
edition/impression would be made solely on the basis of the history of that
number; therefore, a volume might contain the first edition, second
impression of the December number, the second edition of the January
number, etc. The volume itself then is not represented as a new edition, but
as a collection of smaller units, each of which has its own bibliographical
status. Of course, if the volume as a whole has been reset, there is no
question as to its status as a new edition of all numbers.
The treatment of the volume always presupposes that the bibliographer
will distinguish between bound volumes issued by the publisher as a
publishing unit (active aggregation), and bound volumes collected and bound
by other parties (semi-active and passive aggregation). The first instance
results in a new publication, for which the bibliographer can establish the
ideal copy produced by the publisher and printer. There can be no
reconstruction of ideal copy in the second instance because the volume is the
result of changes made after the original printing and sale by agents other
than the printer and publisher. If the publisher made cloth cases available to
subscribers the fact should be noted, and the cases described as a matter of
interest in the general history of the periodical, but in no circumstance would
the bound volumes be included in the bibliographical history of the
periodical, though they may of course be studied and described for other
purposes. Volume title-pages and
indexes issued separately (as distinguished from those included in a
publisher's binding) are also not part of ideal copy, and do not form part of
the description proper.
