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The Risks Of A Mammoth Edition: The Example Of The Complete Letters Of Henry James - Review Of The Complete Letters Of Henry James, 1855–1872. 2 Vols. Edited By Pierre A. Walker And Greg W. Zacharias., Kevin J. Hayes

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

With The Complete Letters of Henry James, general editors Pierre A. Walker and Greg W. Zacharias have undertaken such a mammoth task. In their editorial introduction to the first volume, which has been released simultaneously with the second, they explain that by the time it is finished the entire edition will fill at least 140 volumes. If the editors can maintain their two-volume-a-year pace—in itself quite ambitious—simple division tells us that it will take seventy years to finish the project. The Complete Letters of Henry James is one of those cathedral-like works whose editors will not live long enough to …

Long Before The Nhprc: Documentary Editing In Nineteenth-Century Virginia, Brent Tarter

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

In 1791 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to congratulate Ebenezer Hazard, of Pennsylvania, on the publication of the first two volumes of his Historical Collections, the first documentary edition of the public records of a state or colony. Jefferson’s letter is often quoted for its rationale for documentary editing. “Time and accident,” he wrote, “are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The lost cannot be recovered; but let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public …

The Pitfalls Of Digital History: Review Of Digital History: A Guide To Gathering, Preserving, And Presenting The Past On The Web. Daniel Cohen And Roy Rosenzweig., David Spiech

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

With Digital History, Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig have attempted to boost scholarly authors and editors into the wild world of web publishing, even those who have tried to maintain a conservative academic distrust of electronic media. They write engagingly and frankly, addressing the reader as a colleague who knows historical material well but needs comprehensive background about every facet of digital access and presentation.

Founding Fathers Face The Senate, Charlene Bickford

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

On December 15, 2007, The Washington Post published an article by staff writer Jeffrey H. Birnbaum titled “In the Course of Human Events, Still Unpublished: Congress Pressed on Founders’ Papers.” This article focused on complaints that the editions publishing the papers of Founders John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington, collectively known at the Founding Fathers Papers (FFP), which noted historian David McCullough called “as worthy as any publishing effort that I know of,” take too long to finish and are not accessible enough in the electronic age of free online resources. Comments from Rebecca W. …

2007 Ade Award Recipients

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Julian P. Boyd Award: Gary E. Moulton; Lyman H. Butterfield Award: Beth Luey; Distinguished Service Award: Philander D. Chase; Boydston Essay Prize: Raymond Stephanson; Life Service Award: John P. Kaminski

Documentary Editing: Journal Of The Association For Documentary Editing, Volume 30, Numbers 1 & 2: 2008

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Spring and Summer 2008, Volume 30, Numbers 1 & 2

• If You Have to Explain It, Is it Still Funny?, Beth Luey
• Humor and Its Hazards: Editing The Papers of Will Rogers, Steven K. Gragert
• Yet Another George Washington Website: The Digital Edition and the Future of Documentary Editing, Jennifer E. Stertzer
• Long before the NHPRC: Documentary Editing and Nineteenth-Century Virginia, Brent Tarter
• Balancing Public and Private Lives in the Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott and Florence Kelly, Beverly Wilson Palmer
• Founding Fathers and the Senate, Charlene Bickford
• The Risks of a Mammoth Edition: The Example of The Complete Letters …

If You Have To Explain It, Is It Still Funny?, Beth Luey

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Is editing humor different from editing political correspondence, personal letters, journals, and the materials that most documentary editors deal with? Transcription surely is the same, but what about annotation? When I asked three editors to present papers on the subject, they were reluctant to do so because they didn’t think they did anything differently than editors whose subjects are less funny. But it seemed to me that there would be differences. Humor is often topical and very much tied to its time: any script of The Daily Show resurrected fifty years from now would require a lot of explanation. Does …

Yet Another George Washington Website: The Digital Edition And The Future Of Documentary Editing, Jennifer E. Stertzer

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

In 2005, work commenced on what has become The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition. A small team was assembled, and the process of converting legacy volumes to XML began. For the past two years we have been busy entering corrections and changes, linking documents, tackling consistency issues, and correcting errors introduced by our conversion vendor. Though much of the work has been tedious, the resulting digital edition, released earlier this year, is an important milestone for the project. But it’s more than just another George Washington website. This site contains all the features of the print edition, but it …

Documentary Editing, Volume 29, 2007.

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

No abstract provided.

Documentary Editing, Volume 29, 2007-- Front Matter

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Cover--View of Richmond, Virginia Canal in 1864--Title page--Publication Information--Contents--Contributors

Healing The Liberal Arts: Undergraduate Research And Documentary Editing, Robin Leslie Condon

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Every now and then, even the most cynical among us find ourselves on the receiving end of an inspiring surprise. Last summer, the Institute for American Thought at the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts, where I am assistant editor of the Frederick Douglass Papers, hosted a group of undergraduates from Taylor University along with their mentor and professor Dr. Robert Lay. Having prepared himself by reading documentary editing theory and consulting with scholarly editors, Lay designed and supervised an intensive summer-term research project for undergraduates whose aim was to prepare two nineteenth-century journals for publication. These volumes contain the …

Web 2.0 And Documentary Editing In The 21st Century, Max J. Evans

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Since its widespread adoption only a dozen years ago, the Internet has transformed the information economy in one of history's most astoundingly rapid adaptations to technology. The Internet has become a way to quickly, easily, and inexpensively disseminate information. Documentary editors were quick to see its potential, evidenced by the groundbreaking Model Editions Partnership, the growing number of documentary editing project web sites, and recent forays into online publishing by academic presses. The story of publishing online to reach audiences hitherto unreachable or even unknown is the story of democratizing the use of primary source materials.

I begin with a …

Review Of Selected Letters Of Lucretia Coffin Mott. Edited By Beverly Wilson Palmer, Et Al., Leigh Fought

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Such a long and active life naturally produced a prodigious body of correspondence. Beverly Palmer, editor of Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott, estimates that there are 950 letters by Mott alone, and these are the ones that have survived. References within those letters suggest that Mott wrote many more. Yet, the letters of Mott have appeared in a printed volume only once. That volume, Lucretia and James Molt: Their Life and Letters, published in 1884, was edited by Mott's granddaughter Anna Davis Hallowell in a fashion that might be described today as something more akin to "proofreading."

Recent Editions--2007

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

This bibliography of documentary editions recently published on subjects in the fields of American and British history, literature, and culture is generally restricted to scholarly first editions of English language works. In addition to the bibliographical references, Internet addresses are provided for the editorial project or the publisher.

Documentary Editing, Volume 29, 2007--Index

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

No abstract provided.

Notes--Lessons Of Infinite Advantage: Introducing Undergraduates To Historical Editing, Robert F. Taylor

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

What sort of lessons are of "infinite advantage"? The audacious title of this article is taken from our forthcoming publication-Lessons of Infinite Advantage: The California Experiences of William Taylor, 1851-1856 (Scarecrow Press, 2009)-a missionary journal recorded during the California Gold Rush, and annotated with the help of a team of Taylor University undergraduates. The project title, suggested by one of the student researchers, comes from a line in the journal itself: "There are lessons learned in experience which cannot be spread out on paper, and yet of infinite advantage in the details of Christian duty." The line appears in the …

Scholarly Editing As A Dissertation Topic: Philological Perspectives On Documentary Editing In Theory And Practice, Harry Lonnroth

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

The doctoral dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Scandinavian Languages that I duly defended in public at the University of Tampere, Finland, was a so-called philological edition3 for the period of 1678-1695 of the judgment book of the town of Ekenas,4 a Swedish-speaking town in southern Finland:" The scholarly edition includes philological commentary and indices for persons, places, subjects and cases. It constitutes a legal-historical document, which, I hope, will prove to have a long lasting philological and historical source value in both the Finnish and the Scandinavian perspective. (; Before I go on to discuss in …

Bringing Method To The Madness: Editing Personal Writings For Public Wonderment, Melody Miyamoto

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

hen I attended my first Association for Documentary Editing . V V Annual Meeting, my name tag read "Melody Miyamoto, The Papers of Clara Downes." "'Who is Clara Downes?'" people asked me. My reply: "No one famous ... yet." Clara Downes was a single woman who headed west on the Overland Trails in 1860. She may never be famous, nor will she ever leave the kind of legacy that past presidents, politicians, and literary figures have. But she did leave a daily account of her six month adventure. And her personal writings, like so many other women, minorities, and rural …

"Where's Your Real Book?": Textual Editing And The Culture Wars, Wesley T. Mott

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Here's the view from a professor of English at a technological university where the PhD is given in engineering and sciences. Where the Humanities & Arts department is the second-largest department on campus, though we offer only the Bachelor's degree. Where even our multidisciplinary department is split by culture wars. I am a proud alumnus of Camp Edit (Class of 1980). Although I do not work full-time at an editorial project, I hope that my experience is somewhat representative of what faces many documentary editors. [In fact, having seen drafts of my colleagues' remarks, I think you'll detect a similar …

Who We Are As Documentary Editors, Beverly Wilson Palmer

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

When I say I'm a documentary editor living in Los Angeles County, most people assume I'm talking about film, not old-fashioned paper. So I've had to explain myself to the world. That "world" can be a faculty colleague, an administrator, a relative, other scholars, or someone I converse with briefly on an airplane.

I sent Ron Bosco an e-mail asking why I was chosen for this panel, but he never answered (deliberately he later told me). I thus concluded that because all my work has been at small colleges, and I've taken on various identities with each of my projects, …

Reflections Of A Counter-Intuitive Editor, Dennis M. Conrad

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

My reflections are by someone who has followed a non-traditional or rather, counter-intuitive, path to and through documentary editing. The two projects that I have worked for, the Papers of General Nathanael Greene project and the Naval Documents of the American Revolution series, were and are situated in non-academic settings, and by that I mean not associated with a college or university. The Greene Papers was sponsored by the Rhode Island Historical Society and the Naval Docs project by the Naval Historical Center. Moreover, my path into editing was certainly atypical.

Documentary Editing, Volume 28, Number 3, Fall 2006--Front Matter

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Cover--Photo of Adams National Historical Site--Title page--Publication information--Contents--Contributors

Three Letters Of María Antonia Bolívar And Simón Bolívar, Evelyn M. Cherpak

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Maria Antonia's letters to her brother are full of political news and advice, family news, information on the status of their lawsuits, and the condition of his rural and urban properties, including the Aroa mines. One of the topics that consistently appears in their correspondence was the rental, sale, and the lawsuit over the copper mines at Aroa. The mines were part of the Bolivar family patrimony and came to the Liberator upon the death of his brother Juan Vicente in 1810. They had been abandoned in 1804 and taken over by two women, Maria de la Cruz Urquia and …

Indexing: Philosophy Of, André De Tienne

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Critical editions of great thinkers and writers need excellent, comprehensive indexes. The denser the text, the deeper the index. Having indexed several volumes of the writings of the polymathic, dense-and-deep philosopher Charles S. Peirce, I have had occasion to reflect numerous times both upon the art of indexing and upon its logic. This essay will discuss less the art of it (or its mechanics) than its logic-and, by the same token, its ethics. I have good reasons to do so: first, Peirce is the American founder of the logic of signs (also known as semiotics), and one of the major …

Last Words: Documenting The End Of Lives, Cathy Moran Hajo

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

The above scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail can be contorted into an illustration of the dilemma faced by documentary editors when dealing with the death of the subject of their edition. We want to use documents to chronicle the lives of our subjects, but, as King Arthur rightly exclaimed, few record their dying moments in print. In most editions, the death of the subject also ends the editor's work, adding another layer of significance to the event. In this article, I will explore the different ways editors have recorded and contextualized these deaths and discuss how the …

Obituary--David W Hirst

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Subscribers to SEDIT-L will best remember David for his distinguished career with The Papers of Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University where he served as Assistant Editor from 1959 to 1965, Associate Editor from 1965 to 1979, and Senior Associate Editor from 1979 to 1989.

Obituary--Joel Porte

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Joel Porte, 72, Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters, Emeritus at Cornell University, died of esophageal cancer on 1 June 2006. He came to Cornell in 1987 after twenty-five years in the Harvard English Department, including service as its chair. Through a forty-year career at both universities he gained international recognition as a scholar of American literature and a specialist in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Review Of The Correspondence Of William James. 12 Vols. Ignas K. Skrupskelis And Elizabeth M. Berkeley, Eds., Cornelis De Waal

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

he correspondence of William James has come a long way since his ·1 son, Henry James, published the two-volume set The Letters of William James in 1920.1 The recently completed Skrupskelis Berkeley edition boasts twelve bulky tomes, all carrying the seal of the Committee on Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association. The first three volumes cover the correspondence between William and his brother Henry, whereas the remaining nine volumes contain the correspondence with others, arranged chronologically. The volumes include letters to as well as from James. The last volume, which appeared in 2004, covers the period April 1908 to …

Documentary Editing, Volume 28, Number 3, Fall 2006

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

No abstract provided.

Ade Committees 2005-2006

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Officers--Committees