Re: editorial overreach
Posted by:
Platypus (IP Logged)
Date: 7 January, 2018 07:05PM
Concerning a passage in "The White Ship" ....
Kipling Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Note Mr. Joshi's deletion of the
> first comma from the following passage: "On the
> green and flowery mountains of Cathuria stand
> temples of pink marble, rich with carven and
> painted glories,... (CF I-110)
> Deleting the comma after "marble" was entirely
> unwarranted, as I'm sure you'd agree.
In this case, the reason Joshi does not use the comma is because he claims, as his "copy text", a handwritten manuscript sent to Alvin Earl Perry in 1934 (published in facsimile in WHISPERS #4). I have a copy of WHISPERS #4, and the comma does indeed seem to be absent.
Joshi's logic is that this draft must have been prepared in 1934, making it later than any other draft. He therefore decides that this reflects HPL's final wishes, and derives a number of alternative readings from it (e.g., "rove" instead of "can move"; "native place" instead of "native shore")
In my opinion this is a mistake. The copy sent to Perry is not a new draft, prepared in 1934 for publication. It is a more-or-less "original" manuscript, prepared circa 1919, and given to Perry as a gift in 1934, on the theory that "original manuscripts" are potentially valuable keepsakes.
The reason Lovecraft gives such "original" manuscripts away, after his stories are published, is that he has no further use for them. They do not reflect his final wishes, and he prefers to work with typescripts and printed copies anyhow. He discusses this attitude in his letters.
The manuscript given to Perry is hand-written (apparently in pencil, though it's hard to be sure from a facsimile) and scribbled on 2 sides of 4 sheets of paper. The inscription addressed to Perry (clearly in ink) suggests the copy is being given as a gift. While the inked inscription to Perry is dated September 5, 1934, the manuscript itself is undated.
Both HPL's surviving typescript (at JHL) and the copy given to Perry, appear to have matching corrections. For instance, on both the typescript and manuscript, it appears that an earlier word, probably "has", has been corrected to read "hath" ("... none hath ever beheld Cathuria"). On another occasion, in the typescript, an earlier word (probably "beseeched") has been hand-corrected to read "besought"; and the manuscript also reads "besought" but with marks and smudges suggestive of the erasure of an earlier word (again, probably "beseeched"). Note that "beseeched" is the reading found in the 1919 publication in UNITED AMATEUR; which however reads "hath" and not "has".
The theory that best explains this is that HPL wrote the manuscript circa 1919, then prepared the typescript from the manuscript. He then corrected both copies to read "hath". He then published in UNITED AMATEUR (based on the typescript). He then corrected both copies to read "besought". Then in 1927 he published in WEIRD TALES (submitting either the single-spaced typescript or a new double-spaced typescript based on the single-spaced typescript, and in any event ignoring the manuscript).
Remember Occham's Razor (entities are not to be multiplied without necessity). We know HPL composed handwritten manuscripts, before preparing typescripts, and there is no need to postulate two handwritten manuscripts. One such document is adequate to explain all available evidence.
In short, this is a draft that dates back to at least 1919. Its variant readings are earlier to, and not subsequent to, the typescript, and are not the variants HPL chose for publication ... TWICE.
HPL probably prepared a double-spaced typescript of this story for submission to WEIRD TALES, which may have been the occasion for further revision. In my view, the WEIRD TALES text is the best evidence of HPL's final wishes for this story. Hence, WEIRD TALES should be probably followed except when it is clearly in error. The only clear error by WEIRD TALES is "distent" being wrongly fixed to "distant" in the phrase "its sails distent" ("distent" here meaning "distended" as in "pulled taught"). Correct that WEIRD TALES error, and you're done, IMHO. If you want, you can also replace the "simplified spelling" favored by WEIRD TALES with HPL's habitual "British" spellings, though from all the evidence, it seems HPL consented to this kind of change, and did not care about this one way or the other (after all, "harbor" and "harbour", etc. etc., are both authentic archaic variants).
Note that WEIRD TALES faithfully preserved here for this story, all deliberate archaisms by HPL, including "shew", which is also used in the surviving typescript. HPL, of course, usually used the modern spelling "show" in his typescripts, particularly when the setting was modern. Joshi's theory is that he did this only because he knew editors would not honor his wishes, but the example of "The White Ship" shows that is not necessarily the case.
The end result of this would not differ much from the surviving single-spaced typescript at JHL. So faithfully following the JHL typescript would not be a terrible choice either. But the variants Joshi derives from the manuscript have no particular claim to be "definitive".
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 7 Jan 18 | 07:12PM by Platypus.