 | Studies in bibliography |  |
8. Discovering book producers' intentions
David F. Foxon, Pope and the Early Eighteenth-Century Book
Trade, rev. and ed. James McLaverty. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.
Chapter 4: "Pope's Text: The Early Works" (pp. 153-195).
Sometimes it is possible to learn not only what cultural values informed
the production of a book but also what specific intentions guided those
who were responsible for its physical characteristics. In Pope and the Early
Eighteenth-Century Book Trade David Foxon draws on contemporary documents
and the observations of his own sharp eye to pin down responsibilities
with far greater certainty than is ordinarily possible. These sources reveal,
for instance, that a single setting of type for Pope's Works of 1717 was reimposed
to print the volume in small- and large-paper folio and in ordinary-and
thick-paper quarto, each aimed at a slightly different market. Pope's
involvement in the formal presentation of his writings continued throughout
his career. For a glimpse of his control, one might read the chapter "Pope's
of capital letters and italics, reintroducing italics in the cheaper octavo
editions of his Works possibly because, according to Foxon, Pope "felt that
the vulgar needed help in reading his work correctly" (p. 196). Foxon's work
incidentally calls attention to the relative value of evidence from contemporary
records on the one hand and from the artifacts those records describe
on the other. The contract stipulates that the quarto was to be printed on
two kinds of paper, but examination of the actual books reveals that the
quarto was printed on three distinct varieties. There may be a way in which
the wording of the contract is accurate, but that interpretation must be
consistent with the evidence of the books themselves and, if there is an
irreconcilable conflict, yield to it.
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