Stuk 37 - Letter from Kenneth Sisam to R. B. McKerrow

1 single sheet

Clarendon Press, Oxford.—Has referred McKerrow’s inquiries about modern and historical methods of proof-correction to Johnson.

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Transcript

The Clarendon Press, Oxford
18th June, 1928.

Dear Mr. McKerrow,

I feel I am not expert enough in past or present practice to give you an answer about proof correcting which you could rely on. So I am asking Johnson to find out what he can both of the present practice and the traditional practice. I suspect there are a variety of practices. Until recently we did a great many books by hand, but the hand compositors have in the last year or two been largely transferred to the monotype side. The new monotype arrangements upset all the ancient practices, not always with the best results, as I am inclined to think that proof correction and proof reading is much more costly and less satisfactory on the monotype system that it was when the setting was done by hand—at least that is my experience.

Anyhow we shall find out for you as well as we can how things were done. I am inclined to think that printers always varied the amount of reading with their knowledge of the author—doing very little for an author known to be reliable, and taking great care when the author was known to be unsafe.

Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Sisam

R. B. McKerrow Esq.,
Enderley,
Little Kingshill,
Great Missenden,
Bucks.

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Typed, except the signature. At the head are the reference ‘L.B. 5889/K.S.’ and, elsewhere, the letter ‘C.’