Item 27 - Letter from Alice Walker to R. B. McKerrow

2 Bankfield Lane, Southport.—Sends 2 Henry VI, II. i–iii, and comments on her annotations and queries.

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Transcript

2 Bankfield Lane, Southport.
7 June 1936.

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

Herewith 2 Henry VI, II. i–iii. (I will send Scene iv with the following Act in a few days.) I don’t think there is much to be done to it and I think my query slips are beginning to decrease in bulk! The main difficulty I have had with this part is the line numbering. It is very difficult to be certain that the reference numbers are right where there is so much re-arrangement and so much prose. When I havn’t felt fairly confident that the lemma references were right I havn’t ticked them. I think the only other thing that has bothered me in the collation notes is the formula for line re-arrangement. You will see that I have altered the formula of your MS. (Thus arranged or Arranged as) to Three lines etc. [This isn’t very clear, but you will see what I have done]. {1} I don’t feel too happy about this. Will you tell me if you think the formula of your MS. is better? I remember raising this point before and to the best of my recollection you decided that the Four lines formula was to serve when the number of lines as re-arranged differed from the number in F1 and the Arranged as formula when the number as re-arranged agreed with that in F1 but the word-distribution was different. Have I got this right?

I don’t think I have acknowledged your letter of the 3rd in reply to some of my queries. I am sending it back again with pencilled notes as I think this is the easiest way of replying to it!

Yours sincerely,
Alice Walker.

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Typed, except signature.

{1} The square brackets are original.