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

Dawn's Left Hand

CE: Volume IV, Book 10, 1938 / 1967

E: London: Duckworth, 1931

 
Quotation marks for dialogue, and for sayings:

 ' . . . ' in CE 

" . . . " in Dawn's Left Hand 1931

Titles of books, journals, music, etc.:

Italics in CE

" . . . " in Dawn's Left Hand 1931

Publishing house rules:

Mr, Mrs etc. in CE 

Mr., Mrs. etc. in Dawn's Left Hand 1931

Foreign words and phrases:   Italics in CE Italics in Revolving Lights 1923

Misprints and errors are indicated by an asterisk*

SUMMARY OF VARIANTS

Of 551 variants, 117 may be regarded as substantive. Of the latter, 10 record the absence of chapter divisions in E, and 2 differences in section breaks; a further 27 are variants in: spelling (7), punctuation (9), italics (1), number (3), order (3) and tense (4).

Richardson deletes words from E on 7 occasions, without significant loss. And on 13 occasions she adds words which, like read only the | read the (CE154.16; E48.15), slightly enhance or reinforce the context.

Richardson substitutes words in 43 places; for example, the engine | the car (CE149.22; E39.8). In one case a sentence is heavily revised: 'Gluck,' she breathed, bending her head to listen. | "Glück," she said, and reflected for the first time that the composer's name meant "happiness." (CE229.29; E184.3-5) The substitution of expending for expanding (CE174.14; E83.23) suggests that the latter is a misprint in E.

I note 7 errors in CE, 5 of them obvious, and 8 equally apparent ones in E, all but one entailing spelling. One exception in CE is scent | scene (CE176.27; E88.7): scent as a result of eyeskip has been picked up from the preceding clause and substituted for scene. The other exception in CE is his personal | her personal (CE254.6; E227.27). Richardson's revisions recorded in the Richardson Papers as well as those she made in the Padstow Library copy of Pilgrimage confirm that the first edition reading of her is correct. (See Notes on 'Pilgrimage': Dorothy Richardson Annotated, Appendix 1.) Possibly the error was an unsolicited and misguided revision by the editor.

As usual, revisions are kept to a minimum. By 1931 Richardson's style and principles of composition are firmly established. Even the ever-tempting comma is only inserted 208 times in CE.

Substantive variants are marked >

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