Reading and Language Commons^™

Editing Non-Canonical Texts: Issues And Opportunities, Kenneth M. Price

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

The three articles that follow—by Elizabeth Lorang, Amanda Gailey, and Wesley Raabe—highlight challenges and opportunities faced by editors who address non-canonical texts.1 These essays, while commenting on individual projects, also help narrow the gap separating the disciplines of literary studies and documentary editing. That is, in the past few decades in literary studies, a great deal of attention has been directed toward previously neglected writers. This work—and the debates it has engendered—is contributing to a more complex and multi-faceted sense of our cultural history. Remarkably, full-scale editorial work has barely addressed our altered intellectual landscape.2 Most work by editors has …

Documentary Editing: Journal Of The Association For Documentary Editing, Volume 32: 2011-Front Matter

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

Front matter: Officers, Publication Committee, Editorial Staff, Table of Contents

What’S In A Name? Cultural Onomastics And Other Scary Things About The Lincolns And Their Contemporaries, James M. Cornelius

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

Let me engage in some speculative onomastics. Onomastics is the study of both what a person or a group calls himself, herself, or itself, and what others call that entity. It is the Lincolns’ names for themselves, and what others have called them, that is the main point of discussion for this talk. Many of their contemporaries underwent similar letter-adding or letter-dropping in their names. Again, this will be speculative. I am no more a cultural historian than the next person. Nor have I performed a thorough search of the scholarly literature on either nineteenth-century naming and spelling patterns or …

The Best Job In The World: Documentary Editor, Beth Luey

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

Graduates of the Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents deserve congratulations, not only because they have learned a great deal but also because being a documentary editor is the best job in the world. I can speak of this with some authority. Although I am a 1981 graduate of the Institute, I officially became a documentary editor only after retiring from university teaching, which was my second career. My first was as a university press and textbook editor. Those were all good jobs, but documentary editing is the best. Here is why.

Preserving The Alliance: The Artful Diplomacy Of Benjamin Franklin, John P. Kaminski

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

Documentary editions are filled with stories—stories that often are rich with detail. One of many such stories is found in The Emerging Nation, a three-volume work edited by Mary A. Giunta and J. Dane Hartgrove and published by the NHPRC in 1996. I would hope that this short article might inspire editors and the users of these documentary editions to bring these kinds of stories to life.

Issues And Challenges Of Moving And Maintaining The Papers Of Ulysses S. Grant, Ryan P. Semmes, John F. Marszalek

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

In December 2008 two large moving vans arrived at the Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University, Starkville, containing over ninety filing cabinets and hundreds of boxes of materials belonging to The Ulysses S. Grant Association (USGA), formerly housed at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC). These materials represented over forty-six years of work by the late John Y. Simon and The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant project.

Rethinking Digital Editing Practices To Better Address Non-Canonical Texts, Amanda A Gailey

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

This article stems from my recent work on Race and Children’s Literature of the Gilded Age (RCLGA),1 a digital archive that aims to provide a heavily annotated resource for scholars and students of literature, history, African American studies, visual communication, and education to examine how adults wanted children to think about race during the era of Jim Crow. I edit the archive with Gerald Early, Professor of Modern letters, English, African studies, and African American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and D. B. Dowd, Professor of Communication Design and American Culture Studies, also at Washington University. When complete, …

From The Canonical To The Non-Canonical: Editing, The Walt Whitman Archive, And Nineteenth-Century Newspaper Poetry, Elizabeth M. Lorang

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

This paper draws on my experiences at the Walt Whitman Archive as I begin thinking about my own digital editing project that will treat nineteenth century newspaper poetry. Until recently, I have imagined my project as a fairly straightforward digital documentary edition of newspaper poems, one in which a selection of newspaper poems would comprise the primary texts for editorial treatment. The edition also would accommodate the surrounding text of the newspapers in some capacity, whether with page images or within a critical apparatus. As I have become more familiar with the texts I want to recover, edit, and present—the …

Julian P. Boyd Award Presented To John P. Kaminski, Barbara Oberg

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

The Julian P. Boyd Award is the highest award presented by the ADE. It was established in 1980 through the contribution of an anonymous donor. The award commemorates Boyd’s commitment to excellence and the breadth of his scholarly interests. First presented in 1981, the Boyd Award is now given every three years to a senior scholar in honor of a distinguished contribution to the study of American history and culture.

Helen R. Deese Honored With The 2010 Lyman H. Butterfield Award, Butterfield Award Selection Committee

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

The Lyman H. Butterfield Award is presented this year to Helen R. Deese. With this award the Association for Documentary Editing recognizes, first and foremost, Professor Deese’s achievements as a scholar who works on both sides of our putative divide, producing acclaimed editions of both literary and historical texts. We also recognize her generous service to the Association over many years as a member of its committees and Council, a presenter at annual meetings, an author in Documentary Editing, and a thoughtful contributor to our ongoing discussions of editorial theory and practice.

Association For Documentary Editing Business Meeting, 15 October 2010, Hilton Garden Inn, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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

Program Committee--President’s Report--Liaison Committee Report--Membership Committee Report--Secretary’s Report--Treasurer’s Report--Federal Policy Committee Report--Motion to adjourn was passed unanimously at 4:36 pm.

Presidential Address--New Editorial Futures For The Past, Kenneth M. Price

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

Documentary Editing has served the association well since 1979 as a print journal, but it has run into the familiar problems of a print journal with a limited circulation and ever-increasing costs for paper, printing, and mailing. There have also been problems in having a lack of continuity in the position of editor. The association owes many thanks to the publications committee, and in particular to Ron Bosco and Rich Leffler for their recent work as co-editors. Bosco and Leffler agreed to serve for two years, and with time slipping away we needed new leadership. Luckily Amanda Gailey and Andrew …

In Memoriam-Jo Ann Boydston (1924–2011), Larry A. Hickman

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

Jo Ann Boydston enjoyed a distinguished career as general editor of the Collected Works of John Dewey and director of the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Born in Poteau, Oklahoma, of Choctaw Indian heritage, she graduated summa cum laude from Oklahoma State University in 1944. She received an M.A. from Oklahoma State in 1947, a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1950, and honorary doctorates from Indiana University (1994) and Southern Illinois University (2004).

Willa Cather’S Many-Colored Medusa Of Art: Review Of Youth And The Bright Medusa Willa Cather. Historical Essay And Explanatory Notes By Mark J. Madigan. Textual Essay And Editing By Frederick M. Link, Charles W. Mignon, Judith Boss, And Kari A. Ronning., Nancee Reeves

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

The latest edition to the Willa Cather Scholarly Edition series, Youth and the Bright Medusa, is a monument to Cather’s own standards of excellence. The thick paper stock is warm and creamy—the kind of paper that feels smooth and comforting to fingers well used to thumbing the cheap texts that are so common today. The type is large and dark, and the wide margins showcase the text while filling the consummate note-taker’s heart with joy. As the series general editors, Susan J. Rosowski and Guy J. Reynolds, point out in the preface, “[g]iven Cather’s explicitly stated intentions for her works, …

Changes Coming To Documentary Editing, Amanda A Gailey, Andrew Jewell

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

This spring the Council of the Association for Documentary Editing (ADE), working with the Publications Committee, accepted our proposal to edit Documentary Editing, beginning with the 2012 issue; the Council also approved a change in the journal’s title to Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing. Our plan is to continue the fine traditions of the journal— essays about the theory and practice of editing, reviews of editions, and news pertinent to the ADE membership—while simultaneously taking the journal in an exciting new direction. Owing largely to a partnership with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Digital …

Documentary Editing: Journal Of The Association For Documentary Editing, Volume 32: 2011

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

Articles

• Editing Sophia Peabody Hawthorne’s Travel Writing and the Conundrum of Copies, Patricia Dunlavy Valenti
• On Editing Late-Nineteenth-Century Author Interviews, Gary Scharnhorst
• “A Broad, Generous Stream of Love and Bounty”: The Concord Sewing Circle and the Holley School for Freedmen, Mary Lamb Shelden
• What’s in a Name? Cultural Onomastics and Other Scary Things about the Lincolns and Their Contemporaries, James M. Cornelius
• Issues and Challenges of Moving and Maintaining The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Ryan P. Semmes and John F. Marszalek
• The Best Job in the World: Documentary Editor, Beth Luey
• Preserving the Alliance: The Artful Diplomacy of Benjamin …

Editing Sophia Peabody Hawthorne’S Travel Writing And The Conundrum Of Copies, Patricia Dunlavy Valenti

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

For Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, living and writing were virtually synonymous. An inveterate letter-writer and journal-keeper, she was among the first American women to document her travels abroad. In December of 1833, Sophia Peabody departed for Cuba; she spent the next eighteen months on a coffee plantation, where her older sister Mary was a governess. In 1853, Sophia Hawthorne left the United States again, this time with her husband, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who assumed the post of United States Consul at Liverpool. During the subsequent seven years, Sophia traveled throughout England and Scotland. She and her daughters, Una and Rose, also journeyed …

On Editing Late-Nineteenth-Century Author Interviews, Gary Scharnhorst

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

Contrary to the assertions of the marketing department of the Paris Review, the celebrity interview was not invented in 1953. In fact, the first interviews with prominent authors began to appear in American newspapers in the early 1870s. No interviews with Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, or Nathaniel Hawthorne, each of whom died before or during the Civil War, are known to exist. Charles Dickens sat for no interviews during any of his U.S. speaking tours, including the final one in 1867–1868. The first known interview with Mark Twain appeared in 1871, and the second was not published until …

“A Broad, Generous Stream Of Love And Bounty”: The Concord Sewing Circle And The Holley School For Freedmen, Mary Lamb Shelden

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

Following her trip in October 1875 to the Women’s Congress in Syracuse, Louisa May Alcott spent November and December at Dr. Miller’s Bath Hotel in New York City. There, she spent time with Sallie Holley (1818–1893), who was a frequent visitor at the Hotel. The two spent six weeks “go[ing] about together”: on Thanksgiving Day, they took a carriage ride together in Central Park; another day, they went to tea at the home of a cousin of Holley’s.1 Holley was among the “notables” Alcott remarked on in her Journal, along with Henry Ward Beecher, Bret Harte, Ann Booth, and Moncure …

Editing Harriet Beecher Stowe’S Uncle Tom’S Cabin And The Fluid Text Of Race, Wesley Raabe

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

I suspect that many scholars begin to edit a work by accident: I begin with the anecdote of how I became an accidental editor of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in academic year 2002. I had read not a single work by Harriet Beecher Stowe when I was admitted to the Ph.D. program at the University of Virginia. During my first semester, I was often at Alderman Library’s Special Collections floor to subject a copy of Delariviér Manley’s Memoirs of Europe (1710) to bibliographical analysis. I was reading Stowe’s work in another course, was already in Alderman for the Manley work, and …

The Lion In Winter : Review Of Collected Works Of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume Viii: Letters And Social Aims Edited By Ronald A. Bosco, Glen M. Johnson, And Joel Myerson., Richard Deming

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

The recent publication by Harvard University Press of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Letters and Social Aims, Volume VIII of the Collected Works, is in many ways the most important contribution of this ongoing project, which presents scholarly editions of one of America’s most central literary and philosophical figures. Among all of Emerson’s books, Letters and Social Aims is without a doubt the most vexed in terms of textual questions, coming as it did so late in his life and at the dimming of his powers. However, the volume also represents some of the finest, most necessary thinking of this shaper of …

Recent Editions, W. Bland Whitley

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

This annual bibliography of documentary editions recently published 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.

Contributors

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

Contributors to Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing, Volume 32: 2011

Documentary Editing: Journal Of The Association For Documentary Editing--Front Matter

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

Front matter: Officers--Editorial Staff--Table of Content

An Assessment Of Recent Developments In Historical Editing, Jennifer E. Steenshorne

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

The American historical editing profession has a rich and varied history of publishing projects ranging from the collected papers of great men and women to diaries of relatively obscure individuals. However, one senses that as the profession enters the twenty-first century, as new technologies appear, and as boundaries between disciplines are blurred, the profession is at a loss as to where to place itself. This article is based on a survey of current projects, both in the United States and internationally, from a variety of disciplines, and in both traditional print and new media. My aim is to broaden our …

Massachusetts Historical Society, “The Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive”- Review Of My Dearest Friend: Letters Of Abigail And John Adams. Edited By Margaret A. Hogan And C. James Taylor, John P. Kaminski

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

My Dearest Friend contains 289 letters “selected from the entire corpus” of the Adams letters from 1762 to 1801 and “is meant to show both the consistency of their relationship and the evolution of the family through the entire founding era.” A three-page epilogue on the death of Abigail consists of a short headnote and two letters exchanged between John and John Quincy Adams. All but three of the letters in My Dearest Friend are in the Adams Family manuscript collection given by the Adams family to the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) in 1956. The letters were all microfilmed on …

A New Approach To Thoreau’S “Indian Books”, Jessie Bray

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

Thoreau’s unpublished Indian Books depict a similar consideration of these cultural vectors that cuts across the chronology of his career, which places them at the forefront of his most serious and ambitious research. In order to track Thoreau’s evolution as a writer and thinker, a re-evaluation of this text is necessary. In the 147 years since his death, comparatively little work has been done to bring the value of this remarkable text to light. Yet the advantages of our present digital age provide perhaps the most useful, but heretofore inaccessible, solution to the problem of discussing the Indian Books. In …

The Gilbert & Sullivan Critical Edition And The Full Scores That Never Were, Ronald Broude

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

The critical edition of the “Savoy Operas” of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan provides a useful example of the ways in which scholarly editions of performing works can alter important elements of the sources on which they are based. The accepted form for the presentation of a critical edition of an opera is the “full score,” but for no Savoy Opera did a real full score ever exist—nor was one ever intended. The sources closest to full scores were the copying masters that Sullivan prepared for use by copyists extracting parts for performers, but these are skeletons into which …

Scholarly Editing In A Web 2.0 World: Presidential Address, October 16, 2009, Cathy Moran Hajo

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

How many of you remember when the World Wide Web was new? I remember being thrilled by the things I could do, the information that I could find quickly, and the ability to spread the word about our work. I also remember being unsure how the Web would change the practice of editing. Lately, the design advances and the use of Web technology often described in shorthand as Web 2.0 have made me feel that way again. I am excited about the possibilities, but uncertain about some of the underlying premises of Web 2.0 and what it might mean to …

The “Almanacks” Of Mary Moody Emerson: A Scholarly Digital Edition, Noelle Baker, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis

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

Born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the eve of the American Revolution, Mary Moody Emerson (1774–1863) is most widely known today as the brilliant aunt of American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882). She was, however, an exciting figure in her own right: a scholar, a theologian, a proto-feminist, and an author whose writings offer a rare and prolific example of early American women’s intellectual production. In 1804, when she was thirty, and again in her seventies, Emerson published a handful of periodical essays. 1 But her most significant literary accomplishment is an unpublished series of manuscript “Almanacks” (c. 1804–1855), a miscellany …