Jane Austen discussion
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correcting Project Gutenberg's Pride and Prejudice
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Hi, Martin. According to the recent Harvard University Press annotated edition, your breakdown of the volumes is correct.
Thanks, Abigail. Do I infer your recommendation of that edition?
Unfortunately, it’s one of two out of the HUP annotated editions I haven’t read yet. I have found value in most of the books in the series, with the principal exception being the Northanger Abbey. The editor of that one was bent on portraying Henry Tilney as an abuser! Really tried my patience—especially as he is my favorite Austen hero. But that’s just the commentary; all the books in the series provide very carefully prepared editions based on either the first or the second (corrected) printing of the novels. So they’re hard to beat for textual accuracy. And all provide illuminating historical and social context.
Henry Tilney an abuser!?! Never say so!A terrible slander of the best of JAs heroes!
Whaa!? Why did he claim Henry Tilney was an abuser?!?
Emilia,I was commenting on Abigail's mention above that an editor of an annotated edition of NA cast HT as an abuser.
Andrea (Catsos Person) is a Compulsive eBook Hoarder wrote: "Emilia,I was commenting on Abigail's mention above that an editor of an annotated edition of NA cast HT as an abuser."
Yes, I know! I was just echoing your outrage! And I really want to know what that editor's argument was!!
Basically, the editor of the NA edition thought his making fun of Catherine’s sloppy use of language was cruel, and that he was repeatedly having fun at her expense (such as when he concocted the whole gothic-horror version of Northanger while they were on their way to the house). She seemed to feel he was shaping up to turn out like his father, and that he wanted to marry Catherine just to have someone to feel superior to and lord it over. I don’t recall that she thought he would be physically abusive, just psychologically/emotionally. But still—what nonsense!The editors of the other HUP editions I have read did not go so far out on an interpretive limb; they pretty much stuck to elucidation.
Excuse me Abigail, what is HUP?I think that editor should have confined her theories to a journal article!
Sorry about that: Harvard University Press (the series of editions, each with a different editor, has been published over the past several years by the Belknap Press imprint of Harvard University Press). And you’re absolutely right, such speculations have no place in an annotated edition!
Thanks Abigail for clearing this up.I'm going to make a note in NA that is on my "read" shelf, to stay away from HUP annotated edition!
I wonder if they have published annotated editions of JAs novels in the U.K.? I bet they have!
Well, there are the old Oxford University Press editions edited by R. W. Chapman; those are the ones I used back in antediluvian days when I was in college. David Shapard has done more recent annotated editions, published by Anchor Press—dunno if those are available in the UK. The Harvard UP ones are huge, heavy hardcover editions, relatively expensive (between $30 and $40 apiece). And there are the Cambridge annotated editions in 9 volumes, but they cost over $1,000 and are not widely available.
Yikes!I'll have to do without annotated editions!
Longtime JA geek. I wrote my undergraduate thesis (back in the 1970s) on The Watsons, published a Jane Austen dictionary in the ’80s, and have never gotten the JA bug out of my system. I’ve been thinking about doing a new, expanded edition of the Jane Austen Dictionary and needed a set of reliable editions that was more up-to-date than the Chapman ones, so I invested in the Harvard UP editions because the Cambridge ones are too expensive and the quality of the Shapard ones is in some dispute. Just a happy accident that I was able to answer these questions, in short!
The Norton Critical Editions (W.W. Norton) just released the forth edition of P&P, also available in kindle format. Hopefully they will soon release the updated editions for the rest of the novels as well. I read some the updated Penguin edition of JA works, which I think are excellent.
My P&P says, (Charlotte Lucas, advising E. Bennet re Darcy) "a man often times his consequence" which I assumed was a copy edit error.My Shapard annotated P&P adds a space to make "often" into "man of ten times..." which I think may be correct
My Gutenberg P&P drops "of" leaving "a man ten times..." and I am absolutely certain that these things ought to be sorted out. But experts, including Shapard, don't even agree on which of the original editions to use as authoritative.
I checked with my volumn by Penguin, it was "... a man of ten times his consequence." Hope it helps.
At least the good annotated editions will pick a particular text to follow (usually the first or second printing) and then note when they diverge from that text, and why. The Harvard/Belknap editions all do so. I am not at home or would check my annotated eds to see about the passage in question; if I remember, I'll check next week. I do believe that "a man of then times his consequence" is correct.
I thought I'd double check on my copy of P&P, here, to be sure I do this correctly. I have chapters 1 thru 23 in Volume 1, and chapters 1 thru 19 in both Volumes 2 and 3.
Anyone who wants to take a look at how I've done this, I'm MartinRinehart at gmail dot com.