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

Deadlock

CE: Volume III, Book 6, 1938 / 1967

E: London: Duckworth, 1921

 
Quotation marks for dialogue, and for sayings:

 ' . . . ' in CE 

" . . . " in Deadlock 1921

Titles of books, journals, music, etc.:

Italics in CE

" . . . " in Deadlock 1921

Publishing house rules:

Mr, Mrs etc. in CE 

Mr., Mrs. etc. in Deadlock 1921

Foreign words and phrases:  

Italics in CE

Italics in Deadlock 1921

Misprints and errors are indicated by an asterisk*

SUMMARY OF VARIANTS

The 1713 variants in the CE text include 373 changes in suspension points, the insertion of 585 commas, and the omission from CE of 23 commas found in E. Of the total variants, 231 qualify as substantive, 87 of them being differences in: spelling (17), punctuation (48), italics (4), tense (16), word order (1), and number (1).

Words are deleted in 21 places; for example, said | said violently (CE15.21; E7.20); lifted brows | lifted singing brows (CE212.1-2; E284.11-12). Words are added in 10 places, Your Buckle | Buckle (CE110.11; E142.14) being the most important of a minor lot.

In 57 instances new words replace old; for example, noting | counting (CE86.38; E109.25), and That young man | He (CE132.10; E173.27), or a name is substituted for a pronoun: Lucy Snow | she (CE65.28; E79.28). Among these changes, 7 affirm historical facts: sixteenth century replaces fifteenth century (CE26.27; E23.16); Lovely Woman, by T. W. H. Crosland replaces Wondrous Woman, J. B. G. Smithson (CE50.16-17; E57.33-58.1); and on 5 occasions M'Taggart replaces McHibbert (CE158-171; E210-227). One revision in CE is problematic. At CE205.20 reality replaces unreality at E275.5. This is linked to another emendation later in the same sentence: stimulate (CE205.22) replaces simulate (E275.9). Though the sentence is sufficiently complex in its referents to accommodate either set of words, one must assume that the changes in CE are deliberate.

CE is marked by 6 errors, one of them quite challenging. At CE151.26 she seemed replaces he seemed (E200.4). This is either a misprint in CE or Richardson's intention is oblique: "All her meaning for him was in her English heredity, a thing [that in his view] she seemed to think the finest luck in the world . . .". But the much simpler E reading, "a thing he seemed to think" seems distinctly preferable. Also notice the mistaken Yet these (CE223.29) for But there (E300.8).

E offers 50 errors, ranging from misprints to misspellings. Of these errors, 19 entail missing quotation marks. Sometimes straightforward dialogue is not enclosed (CE114.9-10; E147.33-148.1 and CE114.12-13; E148.4-5); and sometimes a speech quoted within another speech is not marked. For example: "Then when I say that what is really wrong is that I have been cheated of my student period and ought to be living on somebody as a student, he says, 'Pairhaps, but you are in life, that is the most important.'" ( CE104.4-7, also A126.19-23) appears at E133.28-.32 without quotation marks around the inset speech and without a capital P. In comparing CE to E, I regard CE as setting the standard; quotation marks omitted by E are therefore judged errors. But elsewhere in comparing the English First Edition (E) with the American Edition (A), I have accepted the more casual treatment of inset quotations in E simply as a variation, and noted its difference from the American Edition. Such judgments, then, about what constitutes textual error, depend on context.

The number of variants between the CE and E texts of Deadlock is high, next only to The Tunnel and Interim. The number of substantive variants is also high, ranking next only to Interim and Honeycomb. But apart from the injection of historically accurate facts and names to replace fictitious ones, and the emending of the 50 errors in E, the other variants--large though their number--cannot be said to represent any very significant change in the novel.

Substantive variants are marked >

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