[Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf's marked copies of her books?

Thu Aug 8 13:33:27 EDT 2024

Hi All,

A belated reply to Edward's question about the word changed between
impressions of AROO. The first UK and US editions have, "The truth is, I
often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their subtlety. I
like their anonymity." But the second UK impression has "...their
unconventionality. I like their completeness..." In short, VW turns
"subtlety" to "completeness." This was pointed out by Julia Briggs in Essay
14 of her *Reading Virginia Woolf*, "Between the Texts: Virginia Woolf's
Acts of Revision," p. 208.

Best,
Emily

On Sat, Jul 27, 2024 at 11:14 AM Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <
vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> I think not: ‘him’ *was* the problem. Grammatically, it refers to Joseph 8
> ll. up. Stuart From: Zoe Guttenplan Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2024 2: 49 PM
> To: Stuart N. Clarke Cc: vwoolf@ lists. osu. edu Subject: Re: [Vwoolf]
> Virginia Woolf's marked
> I think not: ‘him’ *was* the problem.  Grammatically, it refers to Joseph
> 8 ll. up.
>
> Stuart
>
> *From:* Zoe Guttenplan
> *Sent:* Saturday, July 27, 2024 2:49 PM
> *To:* Stuart N. Clarke
> *Cc:* vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf's marked copies of her books?
>
> This is fascinating. From my typesetting experience, I know that a gappy
> line is just as much of a problem as a tight one. It is therefore also
> possible (technically, though less convincing perhaps) that her intention
> was to cut the “after all” and the insertion of “Peter Walsh” was merely to
> fill the extra space.
>
> Zoe
>
> On Sat, 27 Jul 2024 at 13:22, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <
> vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
>
>> It has been remarked that, since VW knew from her own experience the
>> practicalities involved in setting type, when she altered a line in a
>> reprint she was careful to ensure that that line did not spill over onto
>> the following line. Thus, in
>> It has been remarked that, since VW knew from her own experience the
>> practicalities involved in setting type, when she altered a line in a
>> reprint she was careful to ensure that that line did not spill over onto
>> the following line.  Thus, in this instance, “Yet, after all, how much
>> she owed to him later.” became “Yet how much she owed Peter Walsh
>> later.” (p. 56).
>>
>> If one were editing the text, it would be reasonable to argue that what
>> VW ‘really’ wanted was to amend it to “Yet, after all, how much she owed
>> to Peter Walsh later.”
>>
>> Stuart
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* mhussey at verizon.net
>> *Sent:* Friday, July 26, 2024 4:47 PM
>> *To:* 'Stuart N. Clarke' ; 'Edward Mendelson' ; vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
>> *Subject:* RE: [Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf's marked copies of her books?
>>
>>
>> For what it’s worth, in the ‘Definitive’ (!!!) Hogarth edition issued in
>> 1990 G. Patton Wright says: ‘Virginia Woolf died in 1941, so the last
>> edition she could possibly have overseen was E4, published in 1942. Given
>> the state of her health, her depression, and the unfinished work on her
>> last novel *Between the Acts*, it is reasonable to conclude that she
>> would have taken little interest in a new edition of *Mrs. Dalloway*,
>> one printed according to restrictions of the wartime economy. Previoously,
>> the next latest edition she might have corrected was the “Uniform Edition”
>> (E3), published by Hogarth in 1929 and reissued in 1933. A collation of
>> this text against E1 reveals that it is not entirely a photo-offset reprint
>> as Kirkpatrick claims. For example, on page 56, when Clarissa recalls her
>> experiences with Peter Walsh at Bourton, both E1 and E2 read: “Yet, after
>> all, how much she owed to him later.” However, E3 reads: “Yet how much she
>> owed Peter Walsh later.”
>>
>>
>>
>> Et cetera !! I agree with BJK that it seems impossible to produce any
>> error-free book (speaking as someone who spent about four years ‘editing’
>> Between the Acts and missed a real howler…).
>>
>> *From:* Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net at lists.osu.edu> *On
>> Behalf Of *Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf
>> *Sent:* Friday, July 26, 2024 9:54 AM
>> *To:* Edward Mendelson <edward.mendelson at columbia.edu>;
>> vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
>> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf's marked copies of her books?
>>
>>
>>
>> I am not aware of the differences in the reset edition of Mrs Dalloway in
>> 1942, but it was reset because of wartime requirements: "some of Woolf’s
>> books that Leonard decided had to be reprinted would have resulted in a
>> profligate use of the
>>
>> I am not aware of the differences in the reset edition of *Mrs Dalloway*
>> in 1942, but it was reset because of wartime requirements:
>>
>>
>>
>> "some of Woolf’s books that Leonard decided had to be reprinted would
>> have resulted in a profligate use of the paper quota.  Mrs. Dalloway
>> appears to have been an unfortunate example.  When it was published in
>> 1925, it ran to 294 pages; my sample page (177) has 223 words.  Owing to
>> the paper shortage, Leonard must have decided in 1941 to have it reset,
>> reducing it to 252 pages; my sample page (149), which describes almost the
>> same scene as the corresponding sample page in the first edition, has 270
>> words.  It was published early in 1942 and therefore should have had 323
>> words to the page, but it would not have needed to comply with the
>> Agreement as the typesetting would have begun before 1 January 1942; it
>> does not carry the economy declaration.  In 1946, Chatto & Windus ‘took
>> under its management the Hogarth Press’ (Warner 23) and decided to issue
>> Mrs. Dalloway under its Zodiac Press imprint.  It is hard to believe
>> nowadays, when labour costs so much and goods so comparatively little, that
>> the novel had to be reset once again, so that it could be printed in 1947
>> ‘in complete conformity with the authorised economy standards’ ([4]).  Now
>> it was reduced to 216 pages of a slightly larger size than in 1942, and my
>> sample page (129) reaches the target with 322 words." (*VWB* no. 51, p.
>> 33)
>>
>>
>>
>> Someone (Leonard? John Lehmann?) would have found a copy of Mrs D –
>> hopefully the 2nd imp., but more likely the Uniform of 1929 or its reprint
>> of 1933 (I haven’t seen a copy, but it was probably the last time
>> ‘destestable’ appeared) – and chucked it over to the printers of the Garden
>> City Press in Letchworth, Herts (where the Hogarth Press itself was now
>> located), and told to get on with it.  Someone might just possibly have
>> remembered an additional correction or corrections (kept in a folder,
>> even), and someone, hopefully, would have checked the text when it came
>> back from the printers.  Someone must have noticed ‘destestable’.  It’s
>> wartime, but this is probably how it would have happened in peacetime,
>> too.  (For a considerable number of mistakes in VW’s essays collected in *Granite
>> and Rainbow* (1958), see *VWB* no. 51, pp. 35-6.)
>>
>>
>>
>> B. J. Kirkpatrick told me that she had visited a printer’s, and wondered
>> how any book got produced correctly!
>>
>>
>>
>> By the way, by comparing the 1942 text with the 1st edn, the 2nd imp.,
>> and the 1929 Uniform, you may be able to deduce which was used to produce
>> that new 1942 edn.
>>
>>
>>
>> Stuart
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>> From: Edward Mendelson via Vwoolf
>>
>> Sent: Friday, July 26, 2024 1:47 PM
>>
>> To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
>>
>> Subject: [Vwoolf] Virginia Woolf's marked copies of her books?
>>
>>
>>
>> Two copies of The Voyage Out marked by the author for revision are known
>> to exist. Does anyone know where marked copies might be of her other books?
>> I’m asking in the hope that a marked copy might exist that would give some
>> evidence for the authority (if any) for the changes made in the reset
>> edition of Mrs Dalloway in 1942. My guess is that no such copy is known, or
>> we would all know about it, but it seemed to be worth asking. All
>> information will be gratefully received.
>>
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