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

Oberland

CE: Volume IV, Book 9, 1938 / 1967

E: London: Duckworth, 1927

 
Quotation marks for dialogue, and for sayings:

 ' . . . ' in CE 

" . . . " in Oberland 1927

Titles of books, journals, music, etc.:

Italics in CE

" . . . " in Oberland 1927

Publishing house rules:

Mr, Mrs etc. in CE 

Mr., Mrs. etc. in Oberland 1927

Foreign words and phrases:   Italics in CE Italics in Oberland 1927

Misprints and errors are indicated by an asterisk*

SUMMARY OF VARIANTS

The 695 variants in Oberland include 434 added commas. I designate 75 variants as substantive; 15 are matters of: spelling (2), punctuation (3), number (3), order (1), tense (2), and section break omissions (2).

In 13 instances Richardson deletes words, including the title on the opening page. All are slight except the removal of an entire sentence: annihilation. ¶ | annihilation. It was the discovery of a shared sense of life at first hand that had made them not fear saying the very small things. ¶ (CE92.16; E173.18-21). Richardson added words on 9 occasions, all slight in significance.

Finally, 33 substitutions of words are generally of the merely | only (CE12.33; E10.20) variety. But note might go on a bicycle to | might take a bus to (CE68.10-11; E124.3), and smiling | smoking (CE100.11; E189.19) which suggests that smoking was a misprint in E. I also include here the odd case of an 8-line paragraph moved from one page to another: Post office: offering [. . .] had abolished (CE62.3-10). Had this paragraph been located as it was in E, it would have appeared on page 63 after line 12. The result of its present location on page 62 is the awkward repetition of the words "Post office: offering universal hospitality." Since this paragraph could hardly have been moved without Richardson's intervention, I conclude that after indicating the move she (or her editor) neglected to delete the previous similar sentence at CE62.1-2. Hence the awkward duplication.

There are 2 errors to record in CE, the one minor; the other probably a compositors misplacing of facing: left him up the track half-hidden in a cloud of churned-up facing snow | left him facing up the track half-hidden in a cloud of churned-up snow (CE115.29-31; E217.11-12). The text of E contains 5 unproblematic errors.

Except for the curious transposition of a paragraph on page 62 and the generous sprinkling in of commas, the revisions to the CE text of Oberland are few and limited.

Substantive variants are marked >

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