Editing Nineteenth-Century Fiction: Papers Given at the Thirteenth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 4–5 November 1977 ed. by Jane Millgate

Abstract

dergraduate, for whom the book seems primarily intended, will find it in general the most readable and illuminating of the works on the subject. a n t h o n y g. petti / University of Calgary Editing Nineteenth-Century Fiction: Papers Given at the Thirteenth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 4-5 November 1977, ed. Jane Millgate (New York: Garland, 1978). 128. $15.00 An editor does not expect much gratitude, or huge earnings; the editor’s work is almost concealed, subterranean, or at least unspectacular; the steps are never giant strides for mankind, but they are more definitely a progress, however infinitesimal, than the results achieved through most of the other tasks a literary scholar is called upon to accomplish. (Pp. 38-39) This perspective on editing was voiced by Sylvere Monod, Professor of Eng­ lish at the Sorbonne and one of the world’s authorities on Charles Dickens, at the Thirteenth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems at the Univer­ sity of Toronto. The proceedings of this conference from November 1977 have now been added to the series published by Garland. Literary scholars do not, in my experience, concern themselves much with the problems of editing. Texts appear and we “teach” them. Price is often more relevant than quality. Yet our underlying assumptions, when examined, reveal a total dependence on the work of the unsung editor. It is the editor after all who decides what words and spellings and chapters will actually appear. It is the editor who sifts and judges and bears the criticism for the printed arrange­ ment. Thousands of decisions must be taken and countless hours of un­ noticed work performed before we can casually order the texts that are the life blood of our discipline. It is truly thankless work. Promotions and merit and credit are yielded only grudgingly to those engaged in the process. There is no glamour and no fame waiting to drop upon the editor. Similarly, there is little fanfare attached to the remarkable series of con­ ferences which have been held anually at the University of Toronto, and yet they have perhaps done more to enhance genuine scholarship in literature than many more celebrated gatherings of book people. My own interest in editing is secondary, and yet I have learned more about the making of litera­ ture from these gatherings than from most of the other conferences I have attended, where too often boredom and bewilderment alternate in predicta­ ble and forgettable cycles. The essays in the present volume, edited with characteristic clarity and modesty by Jane Millgate, well illustrate the range of complex issues and disagreements, difficulties, and rewards of the editorial process. The papers have nothing in common except that they deal with nineteenth-century writers and all of them teach us a lot about their partic­ ular problems. What will answer for Hardy will not do for Dickens. Here are some of the major points and issues raised by the scholars whose papers appear in the text under review. Sylvere Monod makes an eloquent and convincing case for the role of the editor as encyclopedist. Not only must the editor be a textualist, seeking the purest original, searching for the words chosen and intended by the author (in Dickens’s case Monod has opted for the first book editions — a wise choice, I think), but he must also make the text available. Using his experience as the foremost translator of Dickens into French, Monod realizes that hundreds of names, places, objects, archa­ isms, games, legalisms, foods, etc. require the editor’s explanation. The welldocumented text is the primary tool of criticism. From Michael Millgate, Peter Shillingsburg, and Clive Thomson we learn of the problems in establishing editorial principles. While first editions may be appropriate to Dickens, they may not be the best choice for Hardy. Later editions may have had more authorial control than earlier ones. Editors dis­ cover where printers, publishers, and earlier editors have intervened. The demands of editing an entire canon of work may impose different criteria from those for a single work. The publishing methods and histories of Dick­ ens, Hardy, Thackeray, and Zola were quite different. The availability of manuscript...