Item 8 - Letter from Alice Walker to R. B. McKerrow

1 single sheet

The White House, Tite Hill, Englefield Green.—Asks whether to remove certain references from the collation notes to 1 Henry VI.

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Transcript

at The White House, Tite Hill,
Englefield Green. Surrey.
24 April 1936.

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

Thank you for your letter. When you next write will you tell me whether you would like me to discard the fairly numerous references to Steevens and the Boswell Variorum that occur in the I Henry VI collation notes {1}—i.e. such references as occur in the ordinary course of collation, leaving, of course, all such references to these editions as indicate that they originated a textual reading. I don’t know whether this is clear. To take an imaginary example—shall I sub-stitute F2–Cap. for F2–Ste. but leave Ste., Mal.–Hart? If references to editions other than those generally collated have to be discarded I may as well omit them and save you the bother of cor-recting them in typescript. I will, of course, make a list of any alterations made of this kind.

I notice, by the way, that there are two Arden editions of I Henry VI. {2} My checking on the pages I sent was done with the 1st (1909).

There is just another point I would like to mention about punctuation. You will see that on the first page of the typed collation notes I sent (under I. i. S.D.) Rowe’s comma before the Earl of was included in the lemma (following your MS.). There seem to be a number of *analogous cases where a mark of punctuation ought to be included in the lemma but isn’t. Shall I insert whatever is required? Although a lemma such as

, the Earl of]

is logical and truthful, it looks odd. {4}

Yours sincerely,
Alice Walker.

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{1} McKerrow had originally intended to include the Steevens edition and the Boswell Variorum among those editions ‘generally collated’, but changed his mind. See Prolegomena, p. 72, and MCKW A4/9.

{2} The Arden edition of 1 Henry VI was edited by H. C. Hart, who also edited the other two Parts. The second (revised) edition came out in 1930.

{3} The asterisk refers to the following footnote: ‘*For instance, in I Henry VI, I. iv. 17–8 where F1 reads

Now doe thou watch, (17)
For I can stay no longer. (18)

and Pope omits line 18 the lemma ought to read

18 , For . . . longer]

Shall I alter this & similar cases accordingly?’

(The brackets around the line-numbers in the quotation have been supplied.)

{4} McKerrow’s discussion of punctuation in lemmas in the Prolegomena (pp. 76–7) does not make clear his intention in cases of this kind.