Item 35 - Letter from Kenneth Sisam to R. B. McKerrow

1 single sheet

Clarendon Press, Oxford.—Discusses the preparations for a new impression.

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Transcript

The Clarendon Press, Oxford
3rd May, 1928.

Dear Mr. McKerrow,

Thank you for your letter of 2nd May. I was about to write to you, though I did not want to worry you, because, although we are not sold out yet, I expect to be sold out in the autumn, and I should like to clear my type. As a matter of fact the sales have gone on pretty well, I think, and I see no reason to suppose that they will fall off.

I shall let you know if there is any technical difficulty about the corrections, but I don’t expect any.

You will remember that the diagram on p. 35 was called in question. Its correctness is undoubted, but I have gone into it with our old compositors, and they say it is not shown in the way in which they would naturally show it. Would you consider substituting a new diagram in the compositors’ way, if we produced a draft?

Our usual method of dealing with such a reissue is to take the date off the title page, and to put opposite the title page “First published 1927. Second impression revised 1928. Third impression —, etc.”. I take it you agree that the amount of change does not justify the term “Second edition”?

You shall certainly see corrected pulls, and I am glad that you are making as few changes as possible, where so little needed change.

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.’