This document discusses research methods and materials related to textual criticism and bibliography. It provides background information on important figures in the fields of textual criticism and bibliography such as W.W. Greg, R.B. McKerrow, Fredson Bowers, and G. Thomas Tanselle. It also summarizes some of the key debates in textual criticism, such as debates around the concept of the "copy-text" and whether there can be an "authoritative" text. The document provides a timeline of important works and developments in the history of textual criticism and concludes with two relevant quotes on textual analysis.

1. Research Methods and Materials
Textual Criticism and Bibliography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism#Digital_textual_scholarship
1) Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature - THE MODERN
HUMANITIES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION - Rev. by Fredson Bowers
2) Sir Walter Wilson Greg (9 July 1875 – 4 March 1959), known professionally as W. W.
Greg, was one of the leading bibliographers and Shakespeare scholars of the 20th
century.
Shakespeare scholars
JosephQuincyAdams
G. E. Bentley
A. C.Bradley
E. K. Chambers
R. W. Chambers
W. G. Clark
W. J. Craig
Edward Dowden
Katherine Duncan-Jones
PhilipEdwards
F. G. Fleay
W. W. Greg
AndrewGurr
AlfredHarbage
CyrusHoy
CliffordLeech
R. B. McKerrow
Maurice Morgann
KennethMuir
T. M. Parrott

2. AlfredW.Pollard
S. Schoenbaum
Edward Maunde Thompson
CharlesWilliamWallace
StanleyWells
J. DoverWilson
W. A. Wright
3) Greg's "The Rationale of Copy-Text"(1951) - textual criticism
4) Ronald Brunlees McKerrow, FBA (12 December1872 – 20 January 1940) was one of the leading
bibliographersandShakespeare scholarsof the 20thcentury.[
5) An Introduction to Bibliography forLiterary Students
6) Paul Maas was a German scholar who, along with Karl Lachmann, founded the field of
textual criticism.
7) The Conceptof "Ideal Copy" - G. Thomas Tanselle - StudiesinBibliography
8) BibliographicInformation –copy rightpage
9) Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, CLIO, Women, Gender, History, a bi-
annual French gender history journal , Postcolonial Interventions:An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture
and Society
10) Studyof journalsinjstor
11) How to Write a Doctoral Thesis : The Humanistic Subjects,
12) Alain Robbe-Grillet was a French writer and filmmake
13) How to Write a Thesis(The MIT Press) – UMBERTO ECO
14) Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet, novelist, literary critic and translator. He is widely
considered among the major authors of the 20th century in his home country.
15) Leo Spitzer was an Austrian Romanist and Hispanist, and an influential and prolific literary
critic. He was known for his emphasis on stylistics.
16)
History of English Research
4 governingbodieshandledresearchtraining
1) Englishsubjectcentres
2002 nov – postgraduate traininginresearchmethod
2) AHRB – Artsand humanitiesresearchboard – culturedandnurturedresearchtraining
3) ESRC – Economicand S ocial researchcouncil
4) RCUK – Researchcouncle unitedKingdom
ResearchSkill –the libraryskill,bibliographyskill

3. Researchmethodology–the perception,the feminism, the concept, postcolonial,
ResearchMethod – the wayhow youactruallyproceed,biographical,ethonograpgical method, 11
methods
Arcxhival,biographical,oral,visual,discourseanalysis,ethnographical,textual,creative writing,
digitalization
1) Archival Method – historical method–archive feverbyderrida– where we findunuseddiaries,
researchwoerk
2) Biographical/autobiographical –differencesindescribingautobiography, biographical writingof
Sylviaplath,
3) Oral historical method –researchthe folkliterature
4)
https://guides.library.columbia.edu/African_Diaspora_and_African_Literatures/journals
https://www.totalexams.com/question-paper/16018/english-ph-d-university-of-hyderabad-central-uoh-
telangana-june-2017.html
MLA InternationalBibliography
The New Cambridge Bibliographyof English Literature,
Reader's Guide to Periodicals
http://www2.washjeff.edu/users/ltroost/Research.html’
Databases (look under "Arts and Humanities")
GeoTom, the library's on-line catalog,
Literary Sources on the WWW
Types of paper :
Research Articles: These should describe new, carefully confirmed findings, innovative & creative research ideas
and experimental procedures should be given in sufficient detail for others to verify the work. The length of a full
paper should be the minimum required to describe and interpret the work clearly. It also includes personalized review
articles on the research work carried at the author(s)’ laboratory, based on the published work of the author(s).
Short Communications: A short communication is suitable for recording the results of complete small investigations
or giving details of new models or hypotheses, innovative methods,techniques,creative models etc., The style of main
sections need not conform to that of full-length papers. Short communications are 2 to 4 printed pages (about 6 to 12
manuscript pages) in length.
Reviews Articles: Submissions of reviews and perspectives covering topics of current interest are welcome and

4. encouraged. Reviews should be concise and no longer than 4-6 printed pages (about 12 to 18 manuscript pages).
Review manuscripts are also peer-reviewed. It also focuses on current advancements in the given field.
Addendum: It includes article giving additional information on earlier published research paper of the author
Case Report: It includes case reports / studies in any sub-areas ofthe main field. A case report is generally considered
a type of anecdotal evidence.
Historical Note: Includes narrations on famous inventions or scientific personalities or institutions or events of the
past.
Narration / Opinion : Views on scientific activity. Narration encompasses a set of techniques through which the
authors / creators presents their vies / opinions
Book Reviews: Books can be reviewed for research thesis, scientific books, printed periodicals, magazines and
newspapers,as schoolwork, or for book web sites on the Internet.Reviewers may use the occasion of a book review
for a display of learning or to promulgate their own ideas on the topic of a fiction or non-fiction work.
Publication Frequency : Two issues per year.
Submission : Authors are requested to submit their papers electronically thru the website both in the word document
and PDF forms.
https://www.totalexams.com/question-paper/16018/english-ph-d-university-of-hyderabad-central-uoh-
telangana-june-2017.html
MLA International Bibliography (MLAIB)
Typers of research: Bibiliographical,biographical,Textual criticism,and theoretical and interpretive
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Textual_criticism#The_MLA.27s_CEAA_and_CSE
Textual analysis,byCatherine Belsey
https://oncomouse.github.io/literary-research-guide/ch21s06.html
RecommendedReading:
Abdul Rahim,F.
Thesis Writing: A ManualforResearchers
. NewDelhi:NewAgeInternational,2005AdamSirjohn.
Research Methodology:Methods &Techniques
. Delhi:NewAgeInternationalLtd,2004.Ahuja,Ram.

5. Research Methods.
Rawat Publications,2001.
Altick,R.D.
The Art of Literary Research
. NewYork : Norton,1963.Barker, Nancy andNancy Hulig.
A Research Guide for UnderGraduateStudents:Englishand American Literature
. NewYork : MLA of America,2000Bateson,F.W.
The ScholarCritic: An Introduction to Literary Research
. London:Routledge,1972.Bawarshi,AnisS.andReiff,MaryJo.
Genre: An Introduction to History,Theory, Research,and Pedagogy.
ParlorPress,2010.Booth, Wayne C.
The Craftof Research
. Universityof ChicagoPress,2003.Brown,JamesDean.
Understanding Research in Second LanguageLearning
, NewYork:Cambridge UniversityPress,2006.Caivery,R.& NayakV.K.
Research Methodology
. S. Chand,2005.Eliot, SimonandW. R. Owens.
A Handbookto Literary Research
. London: Routledge &OpenUniversity,1998.Ellis,Jeanne.
Practical Research Planning and Design
. OrmondMerrill,2010.
Gibaldi,Joseph.
MLA Handbook forWritersof Research Papers
. NewYork : MLAAssociation,2016.Gorman,G. E. andClayton,Peter.
QualitativeResearch for the Information Professionals.
London:Facet Publishing,2005.Harner,JamesL.

6. Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of ReferenceSourcesin English Literary Studies
. NewYork: MLA of America,2002.
Kothari,C.R.
Research Methodology:Methods &Techniques
. Delhi:NewAgeInternationalLtd,1985.Lenburg,Jeff.
Guide to Research
. VivaBooks,2007.Mishra, D.S.
A Grammarof Literary Research
, NewDelhi:HarmanPublishingHouse,1989.Oakman,RobertL.
ComputerMethodsforLiterary Research.
Athens:UniversityofGeorgiaPress,
1984.Rahim, Abdul F.
Thesis Writing: A ManualforResearchers
. NewDelhi:NewAgeInternational Ltd,2005.
Rajanan,B.
Fundamentalsof Research
.
ASRCHyderabad,1968.
Rengachari,SulochnaS.
Research MethodologyforEnglish Literature
. Bareilly:PrakashBookDepot,1995.Sameer,

7. Kumar.
Research Methodology.
Springer:US.,2005.Seliger.
Second LanguageResearch Methods
, OxfordUniversity Press,2001.
Winkler,AnthonyC.&Accuen,JoRoy.
Writing the Research Paper
. ThomsonHeinle,2003
History of Textual Criticism
Modern-day Textual Criticism, though, took shape in that rainy little island called Britain in the
early 20th century. That's when three chaps—A. W. Pollard, R. B. McKerrow, and W. W.
Greg—revolutionized the field by bringing to it a greater degree of rigor and coherence.
Pollard was one of the first guys to systematically study and classify Shakespeare's works in
their various versions. His 1909 book Shakespeare Folios and Quartos: a Study in the
Bibliography of Shakespeare's Plays, 1594–1685 is a milestone in the field.
McKerrow and Greg are known for different reasons, though they were both also big
Shakespeare fans. McKerrow is the dude who gave us the first definition of the "copy-text."
In 1914, he also wrote an important book called An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary
Students, one of the first books to explain and clarify the core principles of Textual Criticism.
Greg followed in McKerrow's footsteps. He wrote a famous essay called "The
Rationale of Copy-Text," in which he took up McKerrow's definition of the copy-text…
and then basically disagreed with McKerrow's whole approach.
Greg's ideas on the copy-text became important for the generation of Textual Critics
who came after him. Two names to keep in mind are Fredson Bowers and G. Thomas
Tanselle. Bowers, in particular, developed and elaborated Greg's ideas, applying them
to the editing and criticism of literary works.
Finally, Jerome McGann and John Bryant are a couple of rebels in the field: they took
up positions that put them at odds with the big guns of Textual Criticism, people like

8. Bowers, Tanselle and Greg. They started focusing more on the social aspects of
textual production and less on the author's intentions alone.
Fights
The big fights revolve around a couple of hot issues. The first of these concerns the
authority of the copy-text. McKerrow was the first Textual Critic to define the copy-
text (very close text to original manuscript, the editor’s primary base) , and in his view,
this is the text that a Textual Critic uses as the basis of his or her own edited
edition of a literary work.
So, let's say you're a Textual Critic who has to present an edited version of a famous
old literary work. You've got a bunch of different versions to work from, and you have to
decide which of these versions is the most authoritative—that is, the closest to the
author's true intentions—and you have to use that version as the copy-text for your own
edited edition.
One school in Textual Criticism believes that the copy-text is the bedrock of Textual
Criticism. For them, your job as Textual Critics is to figure out which is the most
authoritative, most uncorrupted version of a given literary work and then use that as the
basis of your own criticism and editing. This was McKerrow's view.
But another school of Textual Critics disagrees with that approach. Dudes like Greg,
Bowers, and Tanselle developed what came to be known as the "eclectic"
method. What they said was that yeah, a copy-text is important, but it's important only
as far as little things like spelling and punctuation are concerned.
Eclectic method of creating Copy-text:
These guys say that if you want to get at the most uncorrupted, the most authoritative
version of a text, the version that's closest to an author's original intentions, then you
can't just rely on one copy-text. Instead, you have to look at different textual
versions of a literary work and then cut and paste as necessary in order to create
an authoritative work.

9. But there are other Textual Critics, like John Bryant and Jerome McGann, who
disagree with this approach, too, because they take issue with the whole idea of an
"authoritative" text in the first place. They ask: Who says that only one version of a
literary work expresses an author's intentions? And who says that it's only an author
who has authority over his or her work? Editors and publishers also have a say over
the "final" version of a work.
According to Bryant and McGann, we shouldn't be talking about "authoritative" texts at
all. Instead, we should be talking about fluid texts (John Bryant's term),
or socialized authorship (Jerome McGann's term).
Textual Criticism Timeline
1904: The Textual Critic R. B. McKerrowcoins the term
"copy-text"
He did it in his introduction to his edited edition of the works of Thomas Nashe.
McKerrow's invention of the term heralds the beginning of modern Textual Criticism.
1909: A. W. Pollard publishes Shakespeare Folios and
Quartos: A Study in the Bibliography of Shakespeare's Plays
A milestone in Shakespeare studies and Textual Criticism, the publication of this book
marks the arrival of a newer, slicker, and more rigorous type of Textual Criticism. It's
Textual Criticism 2.0.
1914: R. B. McKerrowpublishes An Introduction to
Bibliography for Literary Students
This book became the Textual Criticism Bible. All the basics are here, folks.
1949: W. W. Greg's "The Rationale of Copy-Text" essay is
published
Greg makes us rethink the whole notion of copy-text.

10. 1964: Fredson Bowers publishes "Some Principles for
Scholarly Editions of Nineteenth-Century American Authors"
Bowers announces that "the theory of copy-text proposed by Sir Walter Greg rules
supreme." Greg is king, and Bowers is his heir.
1986: Peter L. Shillingsburg publishes Scholarly Editing in the
Computer Age: Theory and Practice
Textual Critics are beginning to sit up and notice the fact that computers have been
popping up everywhere. Shillingsburg is the first to think about what they mean for the
field.
1992: G. Thomas Tanselle publishes A Rationale of Textual
Criticism
Tanselle, who's a disciple of Greg and a buddy of Bowers, shows us just how closely
connected literary criticism and textual criticism are.
1992: Jerome McGann publishes A Critique of Modern
Textual Criticism
McGann goes on the attack and says that W. W. Greg and Co. are just, well, completely
wrong about the copy-text.
2002: John Bryant publishes The Fluid Text: A Theory of
Revision and Editing for Book and Screen
Bryant argues that we should all go with the flow of the fluid text. That's a text made up
of all variants of a given work.
2006: Herman Melville's Typee—a "Fluid Text" edition—is
published
Bryant shows us his ideas in action when he edits a "fluid text" edition of Melville's first
novel.

11. Quotes:
“The spelling of the copy-text, by which, here and throughout the book, I mean the text
used in each particular case as the basis of mine, [is] followed exactly except as
regards evident misprints.”
- mckerrow
When Textual Critics analyze a text, there are two things in particular they're concerned
with. The first is a "substantive reading" of the text. This kind of reading pays attention
to whether the text being edited accurately reflects the author's true meaning and
expression
The second thing that Textual Critics look out for is "accidentals." These are things like
spelling, punctuation, word-division, and so on.
- W. W. Greg
Many literary classics, including Shakespeare's plays, are available to us only in corrupt
form. Shakespeare's plays, for example, were often transcribed by other people, years
after Shakespeare's death, and we know these people made all kinds of mistakes in
reconstructing his work.
The job of Textual Critics is to recover, as much as possible, the "original" literary work.
Textual Critics interested in Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example, will want to arrive at
the purest, cleanest, most authentic version of that play possible. And that,
according to Bowers, can only be done by using an "eclectic" method.
That means that scholars can't rely on just one version of Hamlet to arrive at an
authoritative edition of the play: they have to look at all the versions of Hamlet
that are available, and they have to reconstruct an authoritative edition of the play out of
all those versions. Textual Critics have to use their own judgment to decide which parts
of each version are authentic and which parts aren't. Then they have to bring it all
together to create an authoritative edition of the play.

12. Bowers was influenced by Greg's idea that you can't rely on just one copy-text to
arrive at an authoritative edition of a literary work. The "eclectic method" is all about
looking at different versions of a literary work and using all those versions to re-
construct a super-duper authoritative version of that work.
- Bowers
Who is textual critic?
Textual critics who focus on literary texts (as most people called "textual critics" have done)
concern themselves in one way or another with alterations. Whether they present their work to
the public in the form of editions or of essays, the force that impels their work—indeed, at one
level or another the actual subject of it—is the possibility that received texts are incorrect
(according to one of many conceivable standards) and in need of alteration to set them right.
- TNSELLE
A literaryworkismade up of a bunch of linguisticpatterns.Some writers,like WilliamFaulkner,like to
write insuperlongsentences.Some writers,like ErnestHemingway,liketowrite insupershort
sentences.
The job of Textual Criticsisto identifythese formsandpatterns.Onlyby identifyingpatternscanyou
notice whenthe patternsare broken—asure signthatsomethingsketchyisgoingon.If apatternis
broken,it'sprobable thatsomeone otherthanthe authorhas interferedandcorruptedthe literary
work.A Textual Criticthenhasto try to figure outwhere the textgoeswrongandhow we it can be
corrected.
- Peter L. Shillingsburg
[I]f we are to speakof authoritative texts,it seemsnecessarytolocate the authoritythat controls the
text. Some thinkof the textas belongingtothe reader.Some thinkthe textisautonomous—once
existing,becominginviolablyathinginitself.Some thinkthe textbelongstothe social institutionthat
includes publishersandeditors as well asthe author.Andothersthinkof the text as belongingsolelyto
the author. Of these last,some thinkthe authorretainsauthorityaslongashe livesandrevises;others
thinkauthorityresideswiththe authoronlyaslongashe iscontrolledbythe coherentintentionof
active creativity butislostto himwhenthatcontrol passes.
As diverse asthese positionsmayseem—andtheycanproduce tremendousdifferencesinthe editingof
any giventext—theyall share one thingincommon:eachisa meansbywhichthe critic or editorcan
selectatextof the workof art that excludesall ormostotherversionsof the textfromthe categoryof
authoritative text.
- Peter L. Shillingsburg
“[A] fluid text is any literary work that exists in more than one version. It is "fluid" because
the versions flow from one to another. Truth be told, all works—because of the nature of

13. texts and creativity—are fluid texts. Not only is this fluidity the inherent condition of any written
document; it is inherent in the phenomenon of writing itself. That is, writing is fundamentally
an arbitrary hence unstable hence variable approximation of thought. Moreover, we revise
words to make them more closely approximate to our thoughts, which in turn evolve as
we write. And this condition and phenomenon of textual fluidity is not a theoretical
supposition; it is fact.”
Meaning: Why are Textual Critics so obsessed with finding an "authoritative" version of a literary
work? According to Bryant, the idea of an "authoritative text" is misguided, since texts are
always fluid: they're always changing, evolving, growing. That's just the way writing works.
Think of it this way: you have a final paper due for our English class. You're dead set on getting
an A in this class, so you start working on the paper the first week of the term. You write draft
after draft after draft. Sometimes you go back to an old draft and revise that. Sometimes you
just start from scratch.
By the end of the semester, you have a folder on your desktop that has twenty versions of the
same essay. Which one is authoritative? Aren't they all authoritative, in some sense? That's
what Bryant thinks, anyway. The only authoritative text here is the combination of every
draft you wrote: it's a fluid text.
- John Bryant
Sometimestheserelationships[betweenauthorandeditorsandpublishers]operate smoothly,
sometimesthe authorwill struggle againsteverysortof intervention,andbetweenthesetwoextremes
fallseverysortof variation[…] "Final authority" for literaryworks restsneitherwiththe author nor
with hisaffiliatedinstitution;itresidesinthe actual structure of the agreementswhich these two
cooperatingauthoritiesreachinspecificcases.
- Gerome Mc Gann
Big Concepts from Big Minds
Copy-text
Thisis the texton whicha Textual Criticbaseshisorher owneditionof aliterarywork.It'susuallythe
cleanest,awesomest,mostuncorruptedversionof anauthor'swork thatwe can find.Eventhistextwill
probablyhave a lotof problems,butthe pointisthatishas fewerproblemsthanother,messierversions
of the text.
Authoritative
The authoritative versionof atextis the bestversionof the text:ithas the fewestproblemsandmost
closelyreflectsthe author'sintentions.Partof a Textual Critic'sjobistodetermine whichversionof text
isthe authoritative one.Sometimesthe choice isfairlyeasy,butsometimesthere are alotof competing
textsdemandingattention.

14. EclecticMethod
Thismethodinvolvesusingabunchof differentversionsof aliteraryworkinorderto reconstructitin its
ideal form,aversionthatis as close tothe author'soriginal intentionsaspossible.
Editing
Editingisall about fixingmistakesin texts that have beenpasseddown to us (andfixingmistakesin
textsof our time,too).Oldertextsinparticularoftenhave loadsof printingerrors,misspellings,andjust
outrightmistakesthatneedtobe thoughtthroughand tidiedup.
Manuscript (holograph)
A manuscriptisa textwrittenbyhand.(That'snot so true of literature writtenthese days,butbackin
the day, that'show authorsrolled.) Some manuscriptsare more "authoritative"thanothers—thatis,
some are more closelylinkedtothe authorthanothers.Textual Criticsare alwayssearchingforthe most
"authoritative"manuscript,if theycanfindamanuscriptat all.
Textual Authority
Who has authorityovera literarywork?Well,generally,people tendtothinkthe authordoes.Afterall,
the author isthe one whoactuallywrote the thing.Textual Criticsthinkwe shouldpayattentiontothe
author's intentionsand,inthe wordsof literaryscholar Eric Cartman, respect the author's authoritah.
Socializedconceptof authorship and textual authority
You can thank Textual CriticJerome McGann forthisfancy phrase.He thinksit'snot justthe author we
needtotake intoaccountwhendecidingonthe most"authoritative"versionof aliterarywork: forhim,
editorsand publishersare totally important, too. The ideaisthat several perspectives are at playinthe
productionof a literarytext,sofocusingonjustone onlygivesyoupartof the picture.
FluidText
WhenTextual Criticscan't decide whichversionof aliteraryworkismore authoritative thananother,
theyrefertoit as a "fluidtext."Whatthismeansisthatall of the differentversionsofthe text make up
an authoritative text… at the same time.
Accidentals

15. These are thingslike spellingandpunctuation,whichTextual Criticskeepaneye outforwhenthey're
tryingto produce an editionof aliteraryworkthat staysas close as possible tothe author'soriginal.
Theymay seemminor,buttheycan have surprisinglywide-rangingconsequences.
Substantive reading
Examples:
Typee has a complicated publishing history. For one thing, it was issued in two editions: a
British edition and an American edition. These editions existed side by side but were not
identical. The critic John Bryant, in his book The Fluid Text, says that Typee is the perfect
example of a fluid text because we can't give one version of the work more authority than the
other—both editions of the novel are authoritative.
In his analysis of the different editions of Typee in The Fluid Text, John Bryant noticed that the
way that Melville wrote about the natives changed a lot from one edition to the other. In one
edition, he was more likely to refer to them as "savages." In the other edition, he was more likely
to refer to them as "islanders." In the passage above, we can in fact see that Melville uses both
the terms "savage" and "islander" to talk about the natives.
Examples:
There are some pretty significant differences between the Quarto version of King Lear and the
Folio version. One of the main differences is that in the Folio text, Lear has a couple of extra
lines: "Do you see this? Look on her! Look, her lips. / Look there, look there." It's as if in his final
moment of life, he sees his dead daughter coming back to life. These lines are not in the Quarto
version.
Examples:
Crafty Faustus sells his soul to the devil for knowledge and power. What could possibly go
wrong? This play exists in two versions: the 1604 A text and the 1609 second edition, or A2.
Compare and contrast the two versions. What differences can you see?
"The Rationale of Copy-Text" by W.W. Greg (1949)
The ideas in this essay made a big splash in the field. Greg challenges the "tyranny" of the
copy-text among Textual Critics.Why does Greg think it's problematic to rely too heavily on
one copy-text of a literary work?
Textual and Literary Criticism by Fredson Bowers (1966)
Bowers's summary of the field picks up on and develops W. W. Greg's ideas.
Rationale of Textual Criticism by G. Thomas Tanselle (1992)
Tanselle argues in this book that literary criticism and Textual Criticism are like two peas in a
pod.
A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism by Jerome McGann (1992)

16. The Fluid Text: A Theory of Revision and Editing for Book and Screen by John Bryant (2002)
“Eliot and Owens’ A Handbook to Literary Research” is best book which has textual scholarship
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 intellectual and the material history of literature.
 how your texts are produced and consumed today
 It is not just the physical form of the publication that affects meaning. The
very way in which literature gets put into print can change the meaning of a text.
For instance, when a compositor’s hand misses the correct section of his type
tray (or ‘case’), or when his assistant puts the type in the wrong section of the
case, or when he misreads the manuscript copy from which he is setting the book.
 Bruce Harkness, ‘Bibliography and the Novelistic Fallacy’ in Bibliography and Textual
Criticism,
 a literary work (indeed, of any text) can be significantly affected by the various
processes that enable its transmission from the author’s original manuscript to a
reader.
 Marshall McLuhan that the “medium is the message”,
 The study of the book as a material object is called ‘bibliography’.
 D.C.Greetham, Textual Scholarship: An Introduction
 Philip Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography
 R.B.McKerrow, An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students
 E.W.Padwick, Bibliographical Method
What is bibliography?
Books are the material means by which literature is transmitted;
therefore bibliography, the study of books, is essentially the science
of the transmission of literary documents.
(W.W.Greg, The Library)
Enumerative bibliography (List of Books)
Each entry will contain details of the author, the title, the printer, the year of publication, and a
list of libraries in which copies can be found. The chance to search an entire enumerative
bibliography quickly and cheaply will allow the scholar, for the first time, to answer very broad
questions about book production in earlier centuries.

17. Analytical bibliography (and codicology)
 codicology (which is the study of the manufacturing processes that are involved in
producing a manuscript book.
 palaeography (the study of the handwriting in which these books were written)
 analytical bibliography, which concerns itself mostly with the manufacture of the printed
book.
 It would be the job of the analytical bibliographer, in approaching a text, to discuss and
describe the ways in which the author’s original manuscript might have been put into
type, how many compositors might have been used, and which compositors w
responsible for which sheets, and what sort of mistakes they might have made in setting
the manuscript into type.
 All this knowledge would be derived from two sources. First, information comes from
the close physical investigation of the book itself—its physical dimensions; the nature of
its paper (colour, texture, watermarks, etc.); the typeface(s) and ornaments used; the way
in which the signatures were arranged; page-layout and design; and so on.
 Secondly, bibliographers can call on the knowledge derived from historical investigations
into how printing was and is carried out.
 Greetham, Chapter 2, ‘Making the Text: Bibliography of Manuscript Books’ (pp.47–75)
and Chapter 5, ‘Reading the Text: Palaeography’
 Analytical bibliography, as we have just seen, is concerned with the close
analysis of individual copies of books in the light of our knowledge of how
books were produced.
Descriptive bibliography
We should not assume that one copy of a book from a given edition is going to be identical to
another copy from the same edition. This is particularly true of books published in the earlier
centuries of printing when there were many more variations and inconsistencies in printing
practices.
Until you have analysed a number of copies, you will not know whether your first copy was
complete. From these doubts—as to whether single copies provide a sound basis for
generalization about a particular edition—came the idea of the ‘ideal copy’. Now the ‘ideal
copy’ of a given edition does not mean a ‘perfect copy’
Roy Stokes’ definition is:
“Ideal copy is not concerned with matters governing the correctness of the text, or freedom from
misprints, but simply with an assessment of the (current) physical details of the book and their
exact relationship to the state in which the book was planned to appear at the time of its initial
publication.”
 This need to pursue and record the ‘ideal copy’ has given rise to a third type of
bibliography— descriptive bibliography.

18. Descriptive bibliography is concerned with taking the information derived from analysis of a
number of copies of the same work, creating out of these a description of an ideal copy, and then
recording the bibliographical details of this ideal copy as precisely and as consistently as
possible.
Greetham, Chapter 4, ‘Describing the Text: Descriptive Bibliography’ (pp. 153–68).
Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography, ‘Bibliographical Description
Historical bibliography
Greetham says that historical bibliography is sometimes described as ‘the biology of books’
(see p.7); but his second epithet, ‘Darwinian’, is in fact more accurate. Historical
bibliography is strongly ‘developmental’: it is concerned with the way in which the various
processes and materials involved in the construction of a book (themselves subjects of analytical
bibliography) developed over time, and the way in which those developments affected the form
and contents of the book.
Historical bibliography does the following:
1. gradual introduction of paper; the spread of paper mills; the evolution of watermarks (as a
means of dating undated or wrongly dated books); the development of paper-making
machinery;
2. the evolution of typecasting; the development of the three main forms of
typeface (gothic, roman, italic).
3. the development of the techniques of composing and imposing type
4. the technical development of printing machinery; the change from wood to metal
construction; the change from human-powered to steam-powered presses.
5. the development of the techniques of gathering, folding and sewing of the
printed sheets.
6. the development of the different techniques of book illustration
7. evolution of different binding techniques and styles
If you are interested in bibliography and its related disciplines, you should think of joining the
Bibliographical Society whose journal, The Library, or local bibliographical societies, such as
those in Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge and Liverpool.
HISTORY OF THE BOOK
 This relatively new discipline extends some of the techniques of bibliography.
 This is the historical study of the book in its economic, social and cultural contexts.
 How did the book as a communicator of ideas, values and experience affect the society in
which it emerged?
 Books therefore consciously aim to
 influence, and sometimes to change, the economic, social or cultural
circumstances in which they were produced. There is a feedback loop built into

19. the relationship between society and its books which ensures that one generation
of books will have an influence on the context in which the next generation of
books appears, and so on.
 The ‘history of the book’ is, perhaps, something of a misnomer, for the
discipline could not, and does not, restrict itself to the study of books alone. Any
printed text—whether it be a book, pamphlet, newspaper, magazine, handbill,
broadsheet, printed form or raffle-ticket—can come within the notice of the book
historian.
the historian of the book is interested in any sort of text once it gets disseminated in whatever
way society and technology allow by writing, by printing, by photocopying, by cdrom or by
computer network.
At present the history of the book consists of a number of different but closely related areas of
research. Among these are:
1. The history of printing
2. Publishing and general book trade history – copy right
3. The history of libraries. This includes: the history of the great national
and research collections (for example, the British Library or the Bodleian
4. The history of reading.
It firstcame to wide publicnotice inFrance withthe publicationof L’Apparitiondulivre in1958
(translatedin1976 as The Comingof the Book) by LucienFebvre and Henri-JeanMartin. France
continuedtotake the lead,andwas the firstcountryto planand publishamulti-volume bookhistory
(Histoire de l’éditionfrançaise).
R.D.Altick, The EnglishCommon Reader
EDITING LITERARY TEXTS
The preparation of reliable, scholarly texts is one of the most valuable tasks a literary scholar
can undertake. Both general readers and professional literary critics concentrate on texts, and
their work of interpretation or evaluation will be gravely damaged if these are corrupt or
imperfect. The more detailed a critic’s attention to the words of the text, the greater the need
for textual accuracy. The us critic F.O.Matthiessen was famously caught out when he wrote
admiringly of what he took to be a brilliantly incongruous image in Herman Melville’s White
Jacket—the ‘soiled fish’ of the sea. Unfortunately for Matthiessen, ‘soiled’ was the printer’s
invention: Melville had actually written ‘coiled’.
 “The job of textual scholars and editors, then, is to work towards the production
of accurate editions of literary texts”
 Your aim is to present as accurate a text as possible of the novel as Defoe intended it.

20.  Your first task, evidently, is to examine all the versions of the novel to have
appeared during Defoe’s lifetime.
 The first problem facing you as an editor is how to decide which of these three
editions to follow or, to use the technical term, which you should adopt as your
‘copy-text’.
 You establish by close inspection that the first edition differs
significantly from the second, but that the second and third editions are identical
except for the title-pages.
 you decide to compare the first with the second/third edition to try to establish which is
the more authoritative.
 emendations (the term ‘emendation’ is used of any alteration made to a copy-text by a
critical editor),
 This business of the presentation of textual variants and editorial emendations (usually
referred to as the ‘textual apparatus’)
 The question of how to select a copy-text has been muchdebated. In a famous essay,
‘The Rationale of Copy-Text’, first published inStudies in Bibliography, 3 (1950–51), pp.
19–36, W.W.Greg drew a distinctionbetween the ‘substantives’, that is the words of a
text, and the ‘accidentals’—thepunctuation, spelling, capitalization and typographical
matters as the use ofitalics.
the editor will usually choose as copy-text the first published edition, since it will transmit most
accurately the accidentals of the manuscript from which it was set.
An edition produced in this way is called a ‘critical’ edition, which is to say that every word and
‘accidental of the text has been examined critically by the editor, who may have altered certain
readings in the copy-text after a considered assessment of all the available evidence.
Such an edition will include a ‘textual introduction’ (or ‘Note on the Text’), which will
describe all the texts that have textual authority or significance, indicate the reasons for the
choice of copy-text, and point out the nature and scope of the editor’s emendation of the
copy-text.
Also included will be an amount of textual apparatus. This will vary between editions, but
essentially it will comprise a record of all emendations, and all significant variant readings in
texts which carry textual authority. Such apparatus may be presented at the foot of the page,
The most influential exponent of Greg’s editorial principles has been the US
scholar Fredson Bowers. What has come to be called the ‘Greg-Bowers’ school of textual
scholarship dominated the practice of Anglo-American scholarly editing for most of the
twentieth century.
‘eclectic’ edition in which certain readings are ‘privileged’ by being incorporated intothe
‘definitive’ reading text, while others are relegated tothe textual apparatus as ‘variants’.