Item 29 - Letter from Alice Walker to R. B. McKerrow

2 Bankfield Lane, Southport.—Sends more of 2 Henry VI, and discusses the glossing of common obsolete words.

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Transcript

2 Bankfield Lane, Southport.
9 June 1936

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

Herewith another bit of 2 Henry VI {1} (you did say you preferred it in instalments, didn’t you?). My query slips seem really to be decreasing in number! I havn’t done much to the notes, except to suggest a few additions and I have only made a few small alterations in copying them. I don’t know whether you would like me to tidy up the details a little more as I type them. Occasionally, when it seems necessary, I insert inverted commas or a verbal reference to the text, but I don’t like to meddle with what you have written unless it seems essential. Will you let me know whether you would prefer me to leave them as I find them, or do the bit of tidying I am doing, or to show a little more courage and insert more inverted commas etc.? There are a number of small points that want attending to (such as punctuation) but I havn’t bothered to insert slips about these as you told me you intended to go over the notes again.

I think there is just one general point that has arisen. In III. i. 261 you have a note on Quillet which you glossed in I Hen. VI, II. iv. 18, but when Colour (glossed in I Hen. VI, II. iv. 34) crops up again in III. i. 236 you don’t explain its meaning. What are you going to do about common obsolete words like this?—(1) gloss them every time they occur? (2) ditto with cross reference? (3) cross-reference only? or (4) ignore them after they have once been dealt with? It is difficult, I suppose, to know what to do. What you really want is a glossary! If you do (4) then the reader may not have read or may have forgotten your earlier note; if (3) it is irritating and wastes as much space as repeating your note and if (1) or (2) the repetition will become very boring. Perhaps the O.U.P. could give a copy of Onions’ Glossary with your Shakespeare! In any case, anyone who needs a Glossary can get Onions’ book which is both cheap and pleasant to handle. Does the O.U.P. insist on having the meaning of words explained? Couldn’t you argue that if you don’t explain them the sales of the Shakespeare Glossary will go up? It seems to me really rather a waste of your space to cover the ground Onions has covered unless you want to add something or to disagree with his explanations—and the problem of how often and in what manner a gloss should be repeated is difficult to solve. Once you have given a gloss in one context on the assumption that the reader won’t understand the word you ought logically to repeat it, as you can’t assume that a reader will read through steadily from Vol. I to the end but you must assume that if he doesn’t know what a word means in one context he won’t understand it in another.

I hope you are not finding that I am getting along far too slowly. Now that I am at home and can make as much mess as I like without being required to tidy it up perhaps I shall get along a little faster—but what takes the time is not the mechanical process of hand and eye (copying and reading) but thinking, and unfortunately I can’t resist the challenge of a problem! I have spent far more time than I should care to confess wrestling with maps, dictionaries and guide books over that baffling Charnico. {2} It looks as if it would be easily identified but it still teases me. Would you like me to try to get along a little faster? I don’t like to hustle over this kind of thing but if you don’t like my pace I will see if I can mend it.

Yours sincerely,
Alice Walker.

PS. I forgot to say that I have numbered the text pages in green pencil. Your numbering went wrong at pp. 19–20 & later petered out. I hope you don’t mind. I have also similarly numbered the pages of your collation notes as these come back in ones and twos.

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Typed, except signature and postscript. Sent with A4/30.

{1} II. iv–III. i.

{2} See OED, s.v. ‘charneco’.