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online Ulysses editions compared
1977: German gov't gives Gabler $300,000 to find and fix Ulysses' typos 1984: Three-volume "Critical and Synoptic Edition" published by Garland 1986: "Ulysses: The Corrected Text" published in one volume-- all other versions are withdrawn (average sales have been 100,000 per year) 1988: Kidd publishes "The Scandal of Ulysses" in NYRB claiming Gabler introduced many new errors 1988: Boston University funds Kidd at $100,000 per year 1990: Re-issue of 1961 edition 1991: Bruce Arnold's "The Scandal of Ulysses" booklength study of debate (almost no examples given) 1991: Norton gives Kidd $300,000 advance to edit Joyce's works 1992-1995: Kidd's Ulysses edition repeatedly delayedKidd argues that Gabler began with an unjustifiable theory of how to proceed, and then carried it thru inconsistently. In particular, Gabler chose to 'regularize' punctuation and capitalization, overruling Joyce's choices again and again. And at many points he seems to have been swayed by the temptation to restore interesting variants that Joyce deleted.
Dan Klyn's archive on the Ulysses-editing debate
At the center of the Gabler-Kidd controversy lies this question: What scholarly principles must the editors of a complex text follow?
There's been a good deal of bluster about scholarly precedents, but the truth seems to be that no one knows yet how to handle a challenge this complex...
The results of the research, it's generally agreed, should be threefold:
1) a synoptic edition, that reproduces the relevant evidence in a maximally accessible form, 2) a thorough analysis of that evidence, and 3) the authoritative final text that results.Now, while Gabler's synopsis (#1) has its faults, it's important to remember that it's the first of its kind, and goes a very long way towards meeting this goal.
But Gabler's analysis (#2) is much less satisfactory, limited to a couple of comparatively short appendices. So the central challenge that faces us is to deepen this analysis, and innovate a more complete *format for presenting it...
With this in mind, I've begun to compile, below, a set of the relevant principles of evidence and argument. It's written, intentionally, in an extremely simplified form, to make things as clear and explicit as possible. Consider that each line-item below might be represented by a special symbol in the synopsis, wherever it's relevant.
Any person, during her lifetime, does a finite quantity of writing. Some of these "text items" will be destroyed, some may survive. A (partial) inventory of surviving text-items can be compiled. Tracing uninventoried items can require great ingenuity. [Many Joycean surprises are still likely to turn up.]Other text-items relevant to an author may be written by other people. They may have been read by her, and influenced her thinking. (This is not often known with certainty.) Or they may discuss her life and her world. These may also be inventoried. [Ellmann's notes may hold some interest, and occasional new memories turn up here and there, but most of this biographical material is well-known and easily available. But we've hardly begun to inventory JAJ's reading!]
Text-items may be published. Publications are usually intended to show authority, and to endure. But text-items may contain ambiguities of various types. Each type of ambiguity permits certain sorts of evidence and argument. If evidence was overlooked, publications are held less authoritative. An authoritative text may require many volumes of justification. [The key question about Kidd and Gabler-- what evidence did they miss?]
The simplest ambiguity is an unreadable word. Handwriting is the usual culprit (haste, awkward conditions, vision). One may postulate guesses about what words (or letters) they might be. These hypotheses are based partly on context. They're based partly on other hypotheses about the author's intent. Other specimens of the same words and letters are important evidence. (It may be possible to build a model of how the writer moved the pen.) Variant readings should be noted, and all arguments fully articulated.
The most common ambiguity is the misspelled word. (A related ambiguity is irregular punctuation.) Most publishers choose to regularize all spellings and punctuation. [With Joyce, this is very unwise! Gabler erred here.] Some writers prefer a non-standard spelling for some words. (Text-items with other spellings provide evidence here.) Some writers may prefer to spell the same word inconsistently. Sometimes it may not be obvious what word they intended. [While there are many minor Ulysses mysteries like this, FW is entirely hopeless!]
Another class of errors is copying-errors. (Spelling and handwriting ambiguities can be viewed as copying errors.) It's usually easy to tell when one text-item was copied from another. [Gabler and Kidd both blew it, though, re the Telemachus placards.] Inventories should try to track all copies (even multiple dittos) Some links in the copying-chain may be lost. An attempt must be made to reconstruct these. The most thorough synopsis will transcribe each layer separately. When two layers show few changes, their transcripts can be collapsed.
It's not always easy to know what copying-changes were unintended. (It's especially difficult to spot these if the one layer is lost!) When authors do their own copying, they often make changes as they go. [Joyce always did.] Even when typists do the copying, the author may be present, revising. Or she may have given instructions to the copyist, that may be lost. (They may have been verbal, and by telephone.) (Finding whether the author was present requires biographical research.) These details must be specified for each copying level.
The author will likely have proofed the copy, with some level of care. Determining the level of care in proofing is crucial. [Joyce did not usually seem to refer to the original as he proofed.] Not all ditto-copies will necessarily have been proofed identically. (But to fix just two dittos out of three seems willfully perverse!) [This was Gabler's guess about Telemachus.] Lost fixes may be restored, where an unproofed copy got substituted. [The Philadelphia MS offers many of these. Post-1922 editions, too.]
Even when copying errors are identified, they can't always be restored. If a text was further modified after an error, restorations may not work. [This is a grievous problem with both Ulysses and FW.] The conservative strategy is not to restore, except via a footnote. (In rare cases, it may be allowable to rewrite the text slightly.)
We may try to track what text-items were copied by a particular copyist. We can then profile the sorts of error he made. (Other text-items created by him will provide useful evidence here.) [Apparently, neither Gabler nor Kidd did this for Telemachus.]
Even careful copyists may drop words or phrases or lines. But the larger the omission, the less likely it was accidental. (There's a great temptation to 'restore' large deletions. Resist it!) Omissions may result from 'eyeskips' between two similar text units.
Copyists may change wordings as they type, usually unconsciously. They'll tend to substitute familiar wordings for unfamiliar. The brain often substitutes more-common endings for words. Or sometimes a pattern of letters 'leaks' from a word (or three) ahead.
Phrases may be inserted in the wrong place due to chaotic source texts. It helps to map out the sequence in which the chaotic text was written. Three principles may guide this reconstruction: - Earlier text-blocks deform later ones (not vice versa). - The more crowded a page becomes, the smaller the writing becomes. - Insertions will likely have been written in the closest open space.
A copyist may include material that was not intended to be copied. It may have originated from someone other than the author. Handwriting is a clue here, and details of inks, etc. Viewing the original page rather than a reproduction is crucial. [This category is not as important as Kidd pretends, for Ulysses.]
A typewriter may lack special symbols (or misprint some characters). [Sykes' Telemachus lost all its "!"s...!] So identifying typewriters may be as important as identifying typists.
Each of these elements may play a role in the evolution of the text. Consequently, a scholarly edition must note their contribution at each point.
A synoptic edition should document each of these levels and ambiguities. Going all the way back to the initial notetaking is important. [Joyce's Ulysses notes are largely unexplored.]
The main source I've relied on is Sandulescu and Hart's "Assessing the 1984 Ulysses", which includes a very useful index-to-quotations in the back. (I recommend this book, not least for an irrelevant-but-great essay by Richard Kain on Dublin in 1904!)
I also have access to most of Kidd's critiques, especially "An Inquiry into Ulysses: the Corrected Text" from the Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America, December 1988. There are also a few items below from Gaskell and Hart's "Ulysses: A Review of Three Texts" a.k.a. the 'Repairkit', which I have not studied closely yet.
I'm concentrating almost entirely on differences between the 1961 Modern Library edition and the 1984/86/93 Gabler edition.
I'll distinguish five classes of changes: good Gabler, doubtful Gabler, 'bad' Gabler, Gabler-having-second-thoughts, and on-beyond-Gabler. The 'bad' Gabler readings are mostly due to Kidd, and are generally not very serious.
Format:
Gabler/ML61 Gabler's version [?] alternate version
approved change [ doubtful original [good]
doubtful change ?[ preferred original [doubtful]
Gablerian error ] fix/restoration [bad]
Gablerian error ]86 fixed in 86 or 93 edition [mutable]
doubtful reading ]? proposed repair [maybe bad]
Example: Gabler's improvements (and I hope there are dozens more of this quality?):
1.86/5.14 his grey searching eyes [ his great searching eyes 1.136/6.28 a crooked crack. Hair on end. [ ...crack, hair on end. 1.194/8.14 and went across the landing [ and I went across the landing 1.248/9.32 to cover the sun slowly, wholly, [ to cover the sun slowly, 1.249/9.33 It lay beneath him, a bowl [ It lay behind him, a bowl 1.279/10.26 No, mother! Let me be and let me live. [ No mother. Let... 1.329/12.1 Stephen haled his upended valise [ Stephen hauled his... 1.385/13.23 [added line about cramming fry and droning] 1.428/14.32 Are you from the west, sir? [ Are you from west, sir? 3.18/37.20 Los demiurgos [ Los Demiurgos 3.24/37.26 Acatalectic tetrameter [ A catalectic tetrameter 3.151/41.3 [restored line: a pocket of seaweed...etc] 3.199/42.15 Nother dying come home father [ Mother dying come... 4.351/64.32 so they metamspychosis [ so they metempsychosis 5.111/74.6 beneath his vailed eyelids [ beneath his veiled eyelids 6.772/108.32 Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman [ ...corpse gentleman 9.52/185.18 bring our minds into contact [ bring our mind into contact 9.760/205.11 in the depths of the buckbasket [ in the depth of... 9.1140/216.1 I forgot ... eh ... [ I forgot ... he ... 10.183/224.7 A just and homely word. [ A homely and just word. 11.1071/285.11 old. But when was young? [ old but when was young. 11.1101/286.6 martyrs that want to, dying to, die. For all things dying, for all things born. [ martyrs. For all things dying, want to, dying to, die. For that all things born. 11.1263/290.20 envisaged battered candlesticks [ envisaged candlestick 12.566/307.31 ...tchisitch, Boris Hupinkoff, Herr [ ...tchisitch, Herr 13.917/372.4 father to, mother to daughter [ ...to mother to daughter 13.1280/382.17 plump bubs me breadvan Winkle red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams [ plump years dreams 14.683/402.29 gentleman of note much in favour [ ...not much in favour 14.1459/424.41 the boys are (atitudes!) parching [ ...(attitudes!)... 15.3/429.4 Rows of grimy houses with [ Rows of flimsy houses with 15.6/429.7 lumps of coral and copper snow [ lumps of coal and copper... 16.1455/653.13 [mystery segment about puritanisme] 17.733/688.10 By juxtaposition. On the penultimate [ On the penultimate 18.229/744.21 for a postcard U p up [ for a postcard up upMore-doubtful Gablerian changes-- these are where most of the debate should be focused (some of these are defensible on genetic grounds but seem to read worse, others are restorations of old versions that Joyce may have overlooked):
1.3/3.3 sustained behind him on the mild ?[ ...behind him by the... 1.6/3.7 and called out coarsely ?[ and called up coarsely 1.10/3.11 the surrounding land ?[ the surrounding country 1.24/3.26 a long slow whistle of call ?[ a long low whistle of call 1.411/14.12 If we could live on good food ?[ If we could only live... 1.417/14.18 [added line: Look at that now, she said.] 1.444/15.10 is a shilling. That's a shilling and ?[ is a shilling and 1.490/16.16 Would I make any money by it? ?[ Would I make money by it? 1.515/17.3 [deleted as printer's error] ?[ Agenbite of inwit. 1.547/17.40 he has made out to prop it up ?[ he has made to prop it up 1.602/19.23 his brief birdsweet cries ?[ his brief birdlike cries 1.638/20.27 I am a servant of two masters ?[ I am the servant of two... 2.124/27.17 His thick hair and scraggy neck ?[ His tangled hair... 2.380/34.27 All human history moves towards one ?[ All history moves... 3.79/39.5 Morrow, nephew. Sit down and take a walk. ?[ Morrow, nephew. 3.141/40.1 epiphanies written on green ?[ epiphanies on green 3.227/43.8 now, AE, pimander, good shepherd of men. ?[ now. 3.451/49.23 name. His arm: Cranly's arm. He now ?[ name. He now 5.156/75.16 fair man. Letter. Cat furry ?[ fair man. Cat furry 6.612/104.5 One whiff of that and you're a doner ?[ ...you're a goner 10.100/221.32 white and black and red, lie neatly ?[ ...lying neatly 10.623/236.26 Feel! Pressed! Chrished! ?[ Feel! Pressed! Crushed! 10.634/236.40 rudely, puked phlegm on the floor ?[ rudely, spat... 11.1115/286.21 passed, reposed and, gently ?[ passed, repassed and... 12.504+c/305.40 pisser Burke ?[ Pisser Burke 12.612/309.1 Hand by the block stood the ?[ Hard by the block stood the 12.1633-1634/337.29 [order of two lines of dialog inverted] 13.1166/379.6 A last lonely candle wandered ?[ A lost long candle... 14.1390/422.42 upon the utterance of the word. ?[ ...of the Word. Eumeus [hundreds of added commas] 16.1355/650.26 her. She loosened many a man's thighs. I ?[ her. I 17.98/669.1 Roman indiction 2 ?[ Roman indication 2 17.99/669.2 MCMIV ?[ MXMIV 17.284/674.27 the same spot, a shock, a shoot ?[ ...a shock, a shot 17.734/688.11 entituled Sweets of Sin ?[ entitled... [also 17.2259] 18.124/741.22 thinking of his fathers ?[ thinking of his father 18.444/750.25 and kicked up a row ?[ and kick up a row 18.579/754.18 if I could only remember the 1 half ?[ ...the one half 18.617/755.20 Waiting and in old Madrid Concone ?[ in old Madrid or Waiting Concone 18.619/755.24 still there lovely I think ?[ still theyre lovely I think 18.723/758.15 theres the pianner ?[ theres the pyannyer 18.814/760.41 like that moaning I made him ?[ like that morning... 18.908/763.22 eeeee one more tsong ?[ eeeeeeee one more tsong 18.939/764.17 that lovely fresh place ?[ that lovely fresh plaice 18.1333/775.22 a potent professor of John Jameson ?[ a patent...All of these 'bad' choices are taken from Kidd (notice how minor most are):
1.128/6.21 Connolly Norman ] Conolly Norman 1.562/18.18 We're always tired in the morning ] I'm always tired... 6.986/114.29 Quicklime fever pits to eat them ] Quicklime fever pit... Eolus [boldfaced headlines reduced in size by Gabler] 7.933/145.13 the threepenny bits and sixpences ] ...and a sixpence 10.731/239.29 You know why? Palm oil. ] You know why? Palmoil. 10.1061/248.34 the happy huntingground of ] the happy hunting ground of 11.419/267.1 drank off his chalice tiny ] drankoff his chalice tiny 14.125-135/386-387 learningknight ] learning knight 14.1591/428.27 in his back pocket. Just ] in his backpocket. Just 15.10/429.11 THE CALL ] THE CALLS 15.704/454.18 holding a circus paperhoop ] holding a circus paper hoop 15.2189/507.25 Dove Campbell ] Dave Campbell 17.1472/711.28 Fry's Plain Chocolate 0 - 1 - 0 ] ...Chocolate 0 - 0 - 1 Ithaca [dot at end too small in Gabler]Here are criticisms already incorporated by Gabler:
2.74/26.2 shifting her dragonscaly folds ]86 ...her dragon scaly folds 5.560/86.29 Still Captain Culler broke ]93 Still Captain Buller broke 9.426-431/195.38 [love passage deleted] 10.1259/254.21 H. Shrift ]93 H. Thrift 15.1652/488.13 Tinct. mix. vom., 5 minims. ]86 Tinct. nux vom., 5... 18.747/759.3 the bottom of the ashpit ]86 the bottom of the ashpit.These may be improvements that Gabler missed. Most are from Kidd:These, too? 12.1163/324.11 that's what the cause of ]86? that's what's the cause of 15.1914-1917 [non-existent lines?]
12.423/303.27 and i was assistant when ]? and I was assistant when 14.1055/413.18 his studied baisemoins ]? his studied baisemains 16.1277-1287/648 3000 in specie ]?? 300 in specie 17.165/671.4 aqueduct of filter mains ]? aqueduct of filtre mains 17.314/675.25 subtracted for Mr Bloom's ]?? subtracted for Mrs Bloom'sKidd did an entirely-unreadable 'review' of the Repairkit in the JJLS. Near the end he says something about these groups of spelling problems you figure it out...):
costsbag, twey, filtre, homilectic, pelosity, unguical garantor, daguerrotype, pumets, langour, philoprogenetive, prolungation disvestiture, fullfilled, isoceles, nuptual gunnard, persistance
Subject: JJ: Editorial reportcard Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 14:42:37 -0600 (CST)editing task difficulty copyist grade comments
Ulysses 80 Kidd 90% had copy of Gabler's work still screwed it up Gabler 95% a massive effort! Joyce 70% should pay closer attention U notesheets 85 Herring 95% fascinating stuff! FW drafts 95 Hayman 95% an outstanding effort! Stephen Hero 40 Spencer 75% some carelessness Scribble 70 Connolly 60% watch those colons!!! FW notebooks 95 Raphael 50% thanks for trying
When, in August 1917, Joyce assured Ezra Pound he could start delivering "Ulysses" in monthly consignments, beginning January 1918, he had already drafted the first three chapters (the Telemachia) twice, and had drafted (at least once) Bloom's Odyssey as far as Eolus. (A version of Scylla was also done, as were early versions, in a "quite plain" style, of the last three chapters-- the Nostos.) Pound had arranged for simultaneous serialization in the Egoist (London) and the Little Review (New York), for a total payment that he warned Joyce would probably be only 100 pounds... although much of this could be in the form of advances.
All thru 1917 in Zurich Joyce had had eye troubles, and from August thru October he was often nearly blind. His sight returned gradually in Locarno in November, where the Joyces had relocated (using the advance money), hoping for a milder winter. Joyce was indulging a flirtation there with Gertrude Kaempfer, leaving Nora feeling rather alone. Their best friends in Zurich-- a couple of professional actors, Claud and Daisy Sykes, with whom they would shortly start the English Players-- had been left behind, but Claud had volunteered his typing skills in the service of Joyce's novel, using a typewriter borrowed at spare moments from a businessman acquaintance of Joyce's.
Around November 23, amid a volley of postcards with various instructions, Joyce mailed Sykes a 'faircopy' of the first episode, Telemachus. These original handwritten pages survive in Philadelphia as part of the 'Rosenbach' manuscript, including pencil notations traceable to Sykes, and can be examined in a facsimile edition that's readily available and reasonably detailed.
Unlike the comparable Finnegans Wake faircopies, typed up by Harriet
Weaver in 1923, the Ulysses faircopies are a perfect mess. They appear
to have been written at high speed, possibly with poor vision, heavily
revised, and annotated in various hands, inks and pencil. As with
the Ulysses notesheets after 'Cyclops', they display Joyce's
weird, possibly superstitious 'diagonal' left margin (mimicked by
this paragraph's formatting). By the bottom of each page, the
left margin takes up fully half of each line! (Joyce in fact
specifically asked Sykes to indent the left margin more for
Nestor than he had for Telemachus. Was he expecting to fill
these margins with additions?)
Sykes typed up Telemachus in exact triplicate with carbon paper, and
returned the three copies to Joyce, who proofread them and mailed the
top two to Pound in London, who remailed one to the Little Review, and
gave the other to the Egoist's printers. Pound's critique of Joyce's
prose at this time can be found in Letters 2, along with six of Joyce's
postcards to Sykes. Letters 1 has two other Sykes postcards, and John
Kidd tracked down another, unpublished one at Buffalo.The third typescript may have gone to Darantiere in 1921 for the first edition of Ulysses, but this is hard to determine certainly. Only a single leaf of Sykes' typing for Telemachus and Nestor survives, reproduced in JJA12. The rest are lost or destroyed, some possibly sold as individual pages by Sylvia Beach (see Kain's essay in "Assessing the 84 Ulysses").
Neither do Joyce's final working drafts for these two chapters survive. (JJA12 includes the final working draft of Proteus, though, which must give a good idea of their appearance.) We do have the typesettings done by the Egoist and Little Review, and Darantiere's placards. But in order to differentiate Joyce's intentions from the copyists' errors, each disagreement among these four witnesses has to be examined individually.
Possible sources of disagreement include:
- Sykes may have miscopied what Joyce wrote - Joyce may have missed Sykes's error completely - or corrected it on only two (or one?) of the typescripts - Joyce may have changed his mind about wording - and conveyed this to Sykes by a card that's lost - or made revisions on only one or two typescripts/ settings - Joyce may have changed his mind twice, returning to an old reading - Joyce may have made changes to the manuscript after the typing was doneThe manuscripts and postcards suggest that Joyce was mainly deleting words and phrases at this time. Deletions, though, are especially difficult to distinguish from copyists' eyeskips, and one can't expect Joyce to have noticed omissions as readily as changes, in proofing.
Charles Peake did the first analysis of these questions in his essay in "Assessing". There's an unusually large number of changes in the Gabler edition (given first, in the notes below) that have a noticeable esthetic impact:
1.3/3.3 sustained behind him on the mild ?[ ...behind him by the... 1.6/3.7 and called out coarsely ?[ and called up coarsely 1.10/3.11 the surrounding land ??[ the surrounding country 1.24/3.26 a long slow whistle of call ?[ a long low whistle of call 1.86/5.14 his grey searching eyes [ his great searching eyes 1.128/6.21 Connolly Norman ] Conolly Norman 1.136/6.28 a crooked crack. Hair on end. [ ...crack, hair on end. 1.194/8.14 and went across the landing [ and I went across the landing 1.248/9.32 to cover the sun slowly, wholly, ?[ to cover the sun slowly, 1.249/9.33 It lay beneath him, a bowl [ It lay behind him, a bowl 1.279/10.26 No, mother! Let me be and let me live. [ No mother. Let... 1.329/12.1 Stephen haled his upended valise [ Stephen hauled his... 1.385/13.23 [restored line about cramming fry and droning] 1.411/14.12 If we could live on good food ?[ If we could only live... 1.417/14.18 Look at that now, she said. ?[ [not present] 1.428/14.32 Are you from the west, sir? [ Are you from west, sir? 1.444/15.10 is a shilling. That's a shilling and ?[ is a shilling and 1.490/16.16 Would I make any money by it? ?[ Would I make money by it? 1.515/17.3 Agenbite of inwit. ?[ [not present] 1.547/17.40 he has made out to prop it up ?[ he has made to prop it up 1.562/18.18 We're always tired in the morning ] I'm always tired... 1.602/19.23 his brief birdsweet cries ??[ his brief birdlike cries 1.638/20.27 I am a servant of two masters ?[ I am the servant of two...To start with a simple one, let's look at the arguments about this:
1.602/19.23 his brief birdsweet cries ??[ his brief birdlike criesThe surviving manuscript faircopy shows "birdsweet", but no other witness included this word until Gabler's 1984. Gabler considers this a case of Sykes mistyping the word and Joyce failing to correct it. The evidence in favor of this is that the manuscript is unmarked, and Sykes would normally have made some mark to indicate the revision if Joyce had requested it. The argument against it is that Joyce allowed "birdlike" to stand thru dozens of proofreadings... and that the surviving leaf of Sykes' typing gives the impression of a very attentive copyist.
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