The data table link provides suggestions of texts in the Rare Book Room that have been approved for use for multiple edition exercises, with call numbers and some notes for the pedagogical uses of these works. The catalogue link provides a summary of the data table, and the gallery link provides all the images of the suggested texts on a single page. Other texts are available; please consult with the librarian.
Once you have determined which texts you would like to use for your class, you can either copy and paste the exercise template below or you can download the exercise template here:
Click Here For the Print Version
For the first part of this exercise, you will need to review a designated passage from two different editions of the same text.
- Be sure to study the passage in both editions carefully. (This is not as easy as it sounds).
- Develop a list of similarities between the two editions. Are the words in the passage identical? Is the spelling consistent? Is the punctuation consistent? If there are footnotes (or other scholarly apparatus), is it the same in both texts? Is the typesetting the same? Are italics used consistently?
- Develop a list of differences between the two editions. Are there words present in one edition that are missing in the other? If the vocabulary has been changed, what is the significance of the change? If words are spelled differently, what is the effect of the difference? Are the footnotes different, and if so, how? And to what purpose?
- Check to see if the texts have any prefatory material that explains the editorial choices in the edition.
- Evaluate the text as a product to be sold—the quality of the paper, the binding, the size of the text, the size and type of the print, illustrations—to help determine the audience for the edition.
Based on your analysis of the passage in these two texts and the texts themselves, you should be able to write a brief (one to two page) essay in which you develop some ideas about the definition of an edition and/or the editorial process.
Please keep the following in mind:
- State your thesis at the beginning of your essay. Your thesis may focus on the editing process, editorial practices, or the effects of editorial choices . Remember that a thesis is a position statement and that you need to stake a position about editions in your essay.
- The more specific evidence you use in your essay to prove your point, the better.
- Your essay should not be a list of responses to the questions 1 through 5 above. The questions are intended to give you some strategies to begin your analysis; they do not provide the structure (or the thesis) for your essay, nor are they intended to limit your analysis.
- Each paragraph of your essay should support your thesis statement. Please make sure that there are transitions between paragraphs so that each paragraph leads to the next, and make sure that each paragraph builds upon its predecessor.
- Every book reflects a cultural moment. Your job is to make sense of it.
- This assignment does not require external research—it requires careful viewing, thinking, and writing.