[Vwoolf] Leonard Woolf as copy editor

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

Fascinating information. Writers do seem to vary enormously when it 
comes to such things, with some checking every comma and semi-colon at 
every stage of the publishing process, and others - well, leaving it to 
spouses and copy editors. As Mark implies, such matters do impact on 
theories of textual editing. It does seem to me that if a writer leaves 
the fine-tuning of - say - punctuation to a copy editor, then this has 
to impact on matters of scholarly editing. Getting back to the "final 
authorial version" may not be as appropriate in such cases as it is 
where the writer wanted control over ever tiny detail right through to 
publication. On the other hand, as anyone who has had their writing 
copy-edited knows, leaving the final check of your punctuation to 
someone else must on occasions result in changes of meaning.

Jeremy H


On 25.10.2013 14:20, Mark Hussey wrote:
>
> No, VW was quite sloppy and LW copy edited her texts. In /The Death of 
> the Moth and Other Essays/ (1942), Leonard wrote of his having 
> “punctuated and corrected obvious verbal mistakes. I have not 
> hesitated to do this, since I always revised the MSS. of her books and 
> articles in this way before they were published.”
>
> Of course, as recent textual editing theory has taught us, editing is 
> always interpretation!
>
> *From:*vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu 
> [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] *On Behalf Of 
> *Jeremy Hawthorn
> *Sent:* Friday, October 25, 2013 7:57 AM
> *To:* 'list', 'woolf' ‎[VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu]‎
> *Subject:* [Vwoolf] Leonard Woolf as copy editor
>
> Is it John Lehmann who has written about how scrupulous a copy editor 
> Leonard W was? I have a memory of some such account. But did Virginia 
> do copy editing for the Hogarth Press? I should know this but don't.
>
> Jeremy H
>


-- 
Professor Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus Professor
Department of Modern Foreign Languages
NTNU
7491 Trondheim
Norway

(Int + 47)73596787 (work)
(Int + 47)72887602 (home)
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