Item 93 - Letter from D. Nichol Smith to W. W. Greg

1 single sheet

20 Merton Street, Oxford.—Praises Greg’s ‘McKerrow’s Prolegomena Reconsidered’.

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Transcript

20 Merton Street, Oxford {1}
29 June ’41

Dear Greg,

McKerrow’s ‘Prolegomena’ Reconsidered is admirable. The time had come for some one in authority to speak of the abdication of the editorial function and to point out that the reaction against eclectic methods may be carried too far. The editors who ‘seek refuge’ (excellent!) in the rigour of a mechanical rule are no better than printer’s readers,—indeed they only try to do what a printer’s reader can usually do better. It is particularly fortunate that this warning should have been uttered by you. The ‘Prolegomena’ called for it. The trouble about that book to my mind is that it is in the main a summing up of what has been going on for some time, with insufficient recognition of what more has to be done and in what directions advances can be made.

Yours ever
D. Nichol Smith.

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{1} The first line of the printed address has been altered by hand from ‘Merton College' to ‘20 Merton Street’.

Formerly inserted in Greg's copy of R. B. McKerrow’s Prolegomena for the Oxford Shakespeare (1939) (Adv. c. 26. 5).

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2020.