Chapter I: Pilgrimage Volume I I 
       
The Collected Editions (CE) and the English First Editions (E) Compared

Honeycomb

CE: Volume I, Book 3, 1938 / 1967

E: London: Duckworth, 1917

 
Quotation marks for dialogue, and for sayings:

 ' . . . ' in CE 

" . . . " in Honeycomb 1916

Titles of books, journals, music, etc.:

Italics in CE

" . . . " in Honeycomb 1916

Publishing house rules:

Mr, Mrs etc. in CE 

Mr., Mrs. etc. in Honeycomb 1916

Foreign words and phrases:  

Italics in CE

Italics in Honeycomb 1916

Misprints and errors are indicated by an asterisk*

SUMMARY OF VARIANTS

Of 802 variants in Honeycomb, 409 are inserted commas in CE, and 34 are changes in hyphenation. I count 159 substantive variants. Of these, 75 comprise differences in: section breaks (29), punctuation (12), italics (4), spelling (8), number (1), word order (1), and changes in tense (20).

On 25 occasions Richardson deletes words, including the title of the novel on the first page of text. Some of the deletions are minor words like a, and, and the. Some are words that repeat or say much the same thing as other words in the context. In two cases especially matters of substance are removed: She hurried | Thoroughly frightened she hurried (CE418.6; E128.19); and remote. She | remote. She was alone in a strange, luxurious room that did not belong to her, lit by a hard electric light that had been put there by some hardworking mechanic to whom the house was just a house with electric fittings. She (CE431.32; E154.15-19). (The Corries are elsewhere said to have gas lighting.) Richardson adds a single word to CE in 6 instances, none of import.

There are 36 substitutions in wording between the two editions, most of them routine. But note openly | secretly (CE363.25; E28.1); her spirit | her body (CE408.18; E111.15); and 3 instances of Jin Tower as Kate (CE429-30; E150-51).

I record 5 misprints/errors in CE. Note the awkward repetition of in the middle of the pavement, in the midst of the pavement, in the midst of the tide | in the middle of the pavement, in the midst of the tide (CE417.14-15; E127.15-16). At CE361.24-28, Richardson within a single set of quotations marks runs together Miriam's thought about Wiggerson and Miriam's speech to her. The same passage offers one of the 12 errors in E. Richardson encloses Miriam's silent address to Wiggerson within quotation marks but then neglects to begin Miriam's speech to Wiggerson with a quotation mark (E24.20-24). Three of the other errors in E are also matters of punctuation. Of those remaining, one is almost impossible to detect: the colored drawings in Mr. Corrie's study are of horses (CE366.24), not of houses (E33.15).

The revisions to Honeycomb, though more numerous than to the previous novels, are just as minor.

Substantive variants are marked >

 

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