Brisbane 1999

"Bibliography, Mystery, and Detection"

Brisbane, Australia, 8-10 July 1999

The following papers were read at the conference:

"Problems in the Editing of Catherine Martin :The Case of the Second Edition"

Rosemary Campbell

As part of my editorial work on Catherine Martin's An Australian Girl I undertook an optical collation of two editions of the novel - the second, one -volume, abridged edition of 1891, and the 'Australian Edition' of 1894. This collation revealed that the latter does not accord with the descriptive entry in the Guide to the Publication Lists of Richard Bentley and Son which states that the Australian Edition resembles the 1891 edition in every respect except for the omission of the Preface. Nor does this version tally with the relevant correspondence between George Bentley and Catherine Martin, which indicated that the 'Australian Edition' would be made up of unsold stocks of the 1891 edition. Close examination of the Bentley Trade Day Books and Publication Ledgers has provided a solution to the mystery of this anomaly by disclosing the existence of a previously unrecorded second impression of the 1891 edition - an impression which may have had little or no distribution and which appears to have entirely vanished.

"Restoring Anonymity: 'Simon Stukeley' and the Authorship of The Hermit in Van Diemen's Land"

Michael Connor

A lively series of essays which appeared in the Hobart Colonial Times in 1829 were attributed to a non-existent "Simon Stukeley". When they were collected together and published in book form by the same newspaper the anonymity of the author was maintained. The short pieces are satiric pen sketches of unnamed Van Diemen's Land personalities whose identities were probably easily recognized by colonial readers. Modern scholarship, scholarly footnoting, and library catalogue entries, name Henry Savery as the author of the essays. This paper reconsiders the evidence which has led to Savery's posthumous literary fame.

The major contemporary factor in recognizing Savery as the author of these essays was undoubtedly the reprinting, in 1964, of The Hermit in Van Diemen's Land by the University of Queensland Press. Henry Savery appeared on the spine and title page as the author and the book's editor, Cecil Hadgraft, wrote a biographical introduction which strongly made the case for his authorship. Yet it seems that some of the evidence offered by Hadgraft may have been more ambiguous than at first appears. For example, while noting that Savery applied for a ticket of leave in January 1832, and that his application included over seventy testimonials Hadgraft did not mention or comment on an additional letter attached to the file in which Savery denied authorship of the Hermit articles. In this document Savery was asked if he was the author of the "scurrilous & personal attacks on individuals of respectability" and his response was recorded: "Mr Savery protested most solemnly, nay offered to make oath at that moment before me that he was not the writer of the paragraphs in question..."

The paper will further comment on the personalities drawn in the book and the differences between annotated copies held in Australian and overseas collections.

It may be that Anonymous, or "Simon Stukeley", should be considered as possible authors of The Hermit in Van Diemen's Land while the claims for Henry Savery's authorship are more closely considered.

"Forensic Textual Bibliography"

Tom Davis

Beginning in November 1987, a series of extraordinary discoveries was made concerning handwritten notes of interviews conducted by the Police in the West Midlands of England. These discoveries eventually led to the overturning of many convictions for serious crimes (mostly armed robbery and murder) on the grounds there was evidence that the Police had fabricated the confessions on which they were based. The most famous of those reversed convictions was that of the Birmingham Six, imprisoned for life for the murder of 21 people in the Birmingham Pub bombings of 1974. The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, who were responsible for the convictions, was disbanded in disgrace, and the entire culture of policing and police investigation of serious crimes was called into question and radically reformed.

It is not well known that an important part in that series of events, including the case that began the entire investigation, was played by a small team of bibliographers working in the English Department at Birmingham University. This paper tells the story of a pivotal case. It describes the important bibliographical device (largely unknown to bibliographers) known as ESDA (ElectroStatic Detection Apparatus) that enabled the discoveries, and gives details of the textual critical and bibliographical techniques that were used in order to overturn the conviction. Finally, it discusses briefly some of the differences and similarities between forensic and literary bibliography in terms of treatment of evidence and burden of proof.

"Books, Baker Street, and Beyond"

Graham Dudley

This paper considers the different roles played by books and the printed word, including newspapers, in the Sherlock Holmes stories -- both those by Conan Doyle and the later imitations and pastiches. It is, perhaps, not always appreciated how textualised is the space in which Holmes confronts his baffling problems, nor how often books and other forms of the written word have a role in the deductive progress towards solving them.

Conan Doyle uses books as an important factor in delineating his major characters, Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson, Professor Moriarty and also Colonel Moran. Books are used to give dimension to these characters, along with descriptions of their physical characteristics.

Books, magazines and newspapers also play major parts in the plots of stories including being the cause of crimes, and constituting the weapon with which the crime is committed. Sometimes protagoinists or minor charactrers are professionally connected with books, through publishing, collecting or the bookselling trade.

Most important of all, though, I argue that Holme’s deductive method and hence and his career as the world’s first consulting detective are dependent upon an information-rich environment which would not be possible without cheap and widely-distributed printed information. His familiar sending Watson to fetch a railway timetable or an almanac testifies as much to the information storage-and-etrieval powers of the printed word as it does to the forensic, ratiocinative processes this character made famous.

"Catching 'The Kelly Gang' or, The Case of the Litigious Lawyer"

Richard Fotheringham

The multiauthored, much plagiarised, and enormously popular latecolonial play (and later film) "The Kelly Gang" survives only through one manuscript witness in the Mitchell Library, with almost no indications of who transcribed it or when. This paper will try to unpick some of its mysteries, which seem at present to point towards an unexpectedly fluid slippage between the roles of author, actor, and manager, and a disturbingly loose relationship between written text and all performance versions.

"The Authorship of White Stains"

Benjamin Franklin

In 1995, Delectus Books in London published a facsimile of White Stains, a volume of erotica originally published in the 1930s or 1940s. The original volume was published anonymously, but Delectus announces it as by "Anais Nin & Friends." In the introduction to the facsimile, C. J. Scheiner explains his reasons for concluding that Nin and friends wrote White Stains, but his arguments are unconvincing. As a result of this attribution, though, other publishers have assumed that Nin wrote this book and have published it as hers. Now, electronic data bases -- such as "Global Books in Print" -- and book stores on the world wide web -- such as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble -- announce the book as Nin's. In my paper, I examine the history of this book and demonstrate that Scheiner does not adequately prove his assertion that Nin and friends wrote White Stains. Because his introduction has been published only in the Delectus edition, few people outside Britain have read it and therefore assume that the attribution is accurate.

Warwick Gould

At the turn of the century, the stance of the United States in respect of international copyright law was isolationist. The 'Chace' Law (1891) had done nothing to stop the determined pirate, and had restricted U.S. copyright to works set and printed within the United States. Piracy of European authors was rife, especially in the field of fin de siècle writing. W. B. Yeats, however, had not seemed much of a prize for pirates and his London publishers usually sold sheets or bound stock of his London editions to the American market.

By lecturing across America in 1903-4, W. B. Yeats created enough of an audience to attract the attention of Thomas Mosher, the pirate of Portland, Maine, and place himself in an awkward position. Analysis of newly-available data indicates the size of the problem. With considerable reluctance, he granted an exclusive licence to the Macmillan Company of New York, a solution which has mystified bibliographers who have studied his contracts.

Detective work in archives in New York, Ireland and London (including the discovery of an unknown private collection) has at last revealed how Yeats's difficulty became the Macmillan Company of New York's opportunity.

The role of the New York lawyer and patron John Quinn can be reassessed, and the mystery of why Yeats accepted terms he always refused from his London publishers can be resolved.

The exclusive licence granted to Macmillan is shown to have almost immediately closed his options in the U.S., and to have shaped his American books and their texts. The material conditions of authorship in America a hundred years ago shaped the reception of Yeats in that country, and will continue to dictate how he is read there well into the next century.

"The Case of the Greedy Greatniece, or, the Printing and Distribution of the Voyage de D'Entrecasteaux"

Wal Kirsop

An attempt by d'Entrecasteaux's greatniece and her husband to take over the profits of the official account published in 1808 was rejected by the authorities in 1814. However, this incident was an incitement to look at the volumes themselves and to discover something of a quite complicated printing history and of a difficult process of distribution. Using evidence drawn from compositorial practices, paper, binding styles, provenance and surviving archival records, the presentation will aim to show some of the features and pitfalls of official publication in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Although a number of points remain uncertain, the paper will try to show the advantages of approaching bibliographical and bookhistory problems with the widest possible range of sources and methods.

"The Bay Psalm Book, 'Cambridge, [1648]'"

Brian McMullin

In the century after its first publication in 1640 -- in Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay -- the Bay Psalm Book (later the New England Psalm Book) went through numerous editions, among them an undated one with the imprint 'Cambridge, printed for Hezekiah Usher, of Boston'. The bibliographical mystery is: where was it printed? -- Cambridge, Mass. or Cambridge, England (or elsewhere); and when was it printed? The answer is of both bibliographical and pecuniary interest.

Received opinion is probably that it was printed in Cambridge, Mass. in 1648. Place has evoked little recent discussion, but various dates -- among them 1658 and 1665 -- have at different times been advanced. The basis for 1648 is that four of the seven surviving copies are (or once were) bound with a bible with imprint 'Cambridge [England], 1648'. The argument for 1648 thus appears strong, though there are two pieces of evidence which cannot easily be reconciled with that date:

(i) the revised state of the text of the '[1648]' is not otherwise known before 1651 (other evidence suggests that this is the earliest edition) -- i.e. there is a prima facie case against a date earlier thatn 1651.

(ii) as Isaiah Thomas noted 200 years ago, nonpareil type (as found in the '[1648]') was not otherwise to be found in New England printing before the Revolution -- i.e. there is not only uncertainty about the date but also a prima facie case against Cambridge, Mass. In fact, the argument 'by association' can be applied in contrary manner: the '1648' bible has a false imprint, having been printed in Amsterdam some time after 1660. Since bible and psalm book are connected typographically, as well as in binding, they presumably have a common origin.

While 'guilt by association' may constitute a doubtful legal principle, a court of law might well accept this case. Note too that it overcomes the difficulties presented by the state of the text and by the nonpareil type.

"Convict Papermaker, Murder Victim, and Ghost: Frederick Fisher as a Papermaker, and his Materialisations in Australia"

Carol Mills

Frederick Fisher arrived in Sydney in 1816. Although clearly inexperienced with the papermaking industry, Fisher became perhaps the leading player in the troubled history of the first paper mill, for which planning began in 1817. He later dropped out of papermaking and became a farmer.

He was missing from his farm by the winter of 1826 and a subsequent search uncovered his dead body in a swamp. Opinions vary on the reason why a search for him was instituted ranging from logical concern that his absence was inexplicable to claims that Fisher's ghost manifested itself on a fence

This paper offers the fullest account which to date I have been able to assemble on the early Sydney paper mills, whose fortunes to some extent swung around Fisher. I am continuing my work on colonial papermaking history, and I think that I have sorted out a few of the puzzles, although the account is patchy; but not bad compared to most other existing accounts. Because this is a "criminal" conference, I have also tried to synthesise the most dispassionate (in the scholarly sense) possible account, whilst acknowledging the myth of the death of Fisher, events leading up to the discovery of his body, and the death of his murderer.

"Attribution and the Pseudonymous: The Case of Victor Daley"

Frank Molloy

Victor J. Daley was a major contributor of poems and prose items to The Bulletin and other Australian journals from the early 1880s to 1905. Principally, he was acknowledged as a lyric poet but his satiric and topical pieces were also admired. JF Archibald, AG Stephens, EJ Brady, George Black and others associated with the newspaper industry welcomed his contributions.

Much of Daley's work, especially in the 1880s, was unattributed, and he also adopted a practice, common at this period, of using a number of signatures for his work.

For anyone compiling a bibliography listing the original publication of individual works, there are a number of issues to address:

  • the range of signatures used which are based on his name;
  • the origins of the pseudonym Creeve Roe, and when it was first used;
  • whether there are consistent patterns of signatures employed for different genres, e.g. Victor J. Daley for lyrics and Creeve Roe for topical work;
  • the use by Daley of other pseudonyms;
  • the attribution of works without signature, either based on textual or physical evidence.

This paper will explore the type of investigations undertaken in compiling a reliable listing of poems, prose articles, letters to newspapers etc., and will review some of the problems inherent in this type of research. In addition, the general context of late nineteenth-century newspapers and journals which allowed for a multiplicity of signatures for their contributors will be discussed.

"Problems in Revision of Conrad's Under Western Eyes"

Roger Osborne

After a severe mental and physical breakdown in January 1910, Joseph Conrad set about revising the typescript of his novel, Under Western Eyes, committing what he later described variously as artistic, "reckless" and "ruthless" acts of revision. This ambiguity, coupled with Conrad's evolving intentions during composition, frustrates any definitive explanation of the textual history of the book. Under Western Eyes began as a short story called "Razumov" in December 1907, a time when repeated commercial failure and a mounting debt to the literary agent, James Pinker, forced Conrad to consider further attempts at reaching a wider audience with more attractive fiction. Disgruntled with earlier attempts to produce formulaic short stories, Conrad pursued the "widely discussed" topic of Russian politics. The popularity of Tolstoy's English translations and the Russophilia of friends such as Edward Garnett irritated Conrad, and he set about writing a "contribution and a reading of the Russian character" that would give readers "the very essence of things Russian". The short story expanded over three years despite Conrad's repeated assurance that the end was in sight. As the story grew, it was revised in typescript to conform to Conrad's evolving conceptions of character, plot and narrative, culminating in large-scale revision in April 1910. Conrad announced at this time that the revised typescript was a "shortened version as I mean it to appear serially", suggesting that he might have intended to restore large passages for book publication. However, fatigue and apathy probably halted this restoration and only slight correction and revision were executed before serial and book publication.

In this paper I will survey Conrad's ambiguous and sometimes contradictory reasons for his revision. Several scholars have attempted to explain the events that influenced the composition and revision of Under Western Eyes, but they have not seriously considered Conrad's attempts to produce commercially viable fiction. With this in mind, I will describe the major events that inform our understanding of the history of Under Western Eyes, discuss the persistent problems that face analyses of the available evidence and conclude with suggestions for further investigation.

"Uncovering Wycherley's Miscellaneous Remains"

Shef Rogers

The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley were originally to be published as Wycherley's Miscellaneous Remains and appeared in print in two volumes dated 1728 and 1729. According to advertisement evidence, however, the two volumes were finally published within two months of each other in September and November 1729. The first volume was edited by Lewis Theobald, the second by Alexander Pope. Pope had enthroned Theobald as King of the Dunces in 1728, after Theobald had revealed Pope's failings as an editor of Shakespeare in 1726. However, the two men had known each other since at least 1712 and their careers, and Wycherley's, had intersected at interesting points along the way.

I argue on the basis of biographical information, knowledge of legal practices and statutes, and analytical bibliographic data that Pope, resentful at not being made Wycherley's literary executor, intervened in the publishing of thePosthumous Works by claiming copyright to his correspondence with Wycherley and to his alterations to Wycherley's verses, thereby forcing Theobald's publisher to cancel several leaves of Volume One and substantially restructure the original intention of publishing the material in two volumes. Pope proceeded to publish Volume Two, though only three copies survive, and it is likely the volume was suppressed, probably because of further copyright disagreements with Theobald or Lintot.

In this presentation I examine the bibliographical evidence available from the extant volumes, situate that evidence within the larger biographical and legal contexts of 17281729, and argue that rather than craftily seeking a pretence to publish his letters, Pope was merely seeking to prevent a man he viewed as an "unlicencd & presumptuous Mercenary" from profiting financially or through association with himself or Wycherley. Ultimately unable to publish his own letters, Pope became incensed at a legal system that denied him property rights to his compositions and used the standing type from Volume Two to reprint his correspondence in 1735, entrapping the publisher, Curll, in order to encourage Parliament to grant stronger legal rights to authors.

"Non-Traditional Authorship Attribution Studies: Ignis Fatuus or Rosetta Stone?"

Joseph Rudman

Nontraditional authorship attribution studies -- those using the computer, stylistics, and statistics -- pose an enigma. Do the 600+ nontraditional studies constitute a Rosetta Stone allowing us to name virtually every anonymous author, as Andrew Morton and some others would have us believe

Or, are these studies an ignis fatuus with just enough legitimate, successful results and just enough studies that have legitimate aspects to lure unsuspecting practitioners into a quagmire full of half truths and flawed techniques? Do these studies show nontraditional authorship studies to be simply aspiration and not fact, as Furbank and Owens claim?

This paper looks at the enigma and presents a reasoned answer:

  1. Introduction
    1. The enigma
    2. What are nontraditional authorship attribution studies and how are they carried out
      1. The computer
      2. Stylistics
      3. Statistics
    3. A very short history of these studies
      1. History
      2. Law (Forensic Stylistics)
      3. Literature
      4. Religion
  2. The four main types of nontraditional studies
    1. Anonymous work no idea of potential author
    2. Anonymous work two, three, or some other small workable number of potential authors
    3. Anonymous work a collaboration
    4. Anonymous work did author "A" write it?
  3. Which type(s) have had successful results and why
  4. Why the other types have not had valid and definitive results? Can these types ever have valid results?
  5. A reasoned answer to the enigma
    1. The validity of the field
  6. Conclusion
    1. Where are nontraditional authorship attribution studies headed?

"This Way of Printing Bits of Books: The Fiction of Incompletion in Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub"

Nick Rushworth

According to the various details provided by the narrator and the bookseller, the printed version of the anonymous 1704 Tale;the "surreptitious copy, which a certain great wit had new polish'd and refin'd", not the author's "blotted copy", amounts to an unfinished fragment of an expurgated, retrenched, finally malformed copy of an original defective copy of a set of manuscripts.

As soon as critics accepted that Swift wrote most or all of it, the need to know about the Tale's different versions and its transmission was obviated, as was the need to study the apparatus criticus. There was only one text for 1704, there was no unauthorized interference with it and all its lacunae, marginalia, footnotes and prefatory material were Swift's doing.

Swift writes in a footnote to the Tale's 1710 fifth edition; "Here is pretended a Defect in the Manuscript, and this is very frequent with our Author, either when he thinks he cannot say anything worth Reading, or when he has no mind to enter upon a subject, or when it is a Matter of little Moment or perhaps to amuse his Reader (whereof he is frequently very fond) or lastly, with some Satyrical Intention."

As soon as a reading of an anonymous Tale accepts its textual history at face value, what account of the "Satyrical Intention" behind its pseudofragmentation can be developed? This paper offers such an account.

"Eliza Haywood's Last ('lost') Work: The History of Miss Leonora Meadowson"

Patrick Spedding

In 1788, thirtytwo years after her death, Eliza Haywood's The History of Miss Leonora Meadowson was published. The book was reviewed in The Critical Review, and again (briefly) in another magazine: and then it disappeared. Since 1788 The Critical Review has been the sole source for criticism, and the only evidence available that this last ("lost") work of Eliza's ever existed. While many have included the title in their lists of the works of Eliza, few have discussed it or its existence. Those few, however, have questioned the attribution, and its authenticity, and have opined about the literary merit of this book solely on the basis of this review. As a consequence, why Leonora were published so long after Eliza's death, whether it was an original work, whether Eliza was the author, and what the "history" of Leonora may have been, has remained a mystery. My recent discovery of a copy of this work, and some important biographical information explaining its late printing, makes it possible to answer some of these questions and to dispel part of that mystery. In sum: the paper will include a brief biographical introduction, an explanation of the "mystery" of Leonora, and the nature of the find. There follows an overview of literary scholarship on Leonora from 1788 to today, with an examination of the contribution of the few scholars who have written at any length on the title, as well as the impact of important writers who have passed over it. There will also be a discussion of how the book came to be published (based on fresh biographical information about Eliza and her children), how it came to be lost (with an explanation of the role of the printer/publisher in this), and how it came to be found (in the course of bibliographical research by the present writer). In the final part of the paper will be presented some facts about this "lost" book, its place in Eliza's canon, and its importance to literary scholars.

"Unmasking Transient Colonial Authors: The Case of Handley Bathurst Sterndale"

Dirk H.R. Spennemann and Jane Downing

Nineteenth century colonial newspapers relied heavily on correspondents and contributions by the general public for special feature articles. While some of these contributions and serials carry by-lines with true names or well-known pseudonyms, the attribution of others is more complicated. This was especially so in the example provided here, an 1871 contribution to the Australian Town and Country Journal, where the author had only spent a short time in Australia and had been only a transient resident of Sydney.

Textual analysis provided a number of promising clues that led nowhere due to the author's deliberate attempts at obfuscation in his supposed real life adventures. A systematic verification of all claims and allusions made in the serial through a comparison with contemporary publications that could have served as sources, led to the positive identification of the author's identity: Handley Bathurst Sterndale (1829-1878), well known to Pacific historians as the author of an influential New Zealand parliamentary paper of 1874.

"If You Can't Even Trust the Title Page ....: A Case from the 1880s"

Cathy Stevens

Bibliographers, librarians and scholars are all trained to take the publication details of a book from its title-page in the belief that this provides the most accurate record of the book's genesis and manufacture. However, this apparently simple rule of thumb is sometimes notoriously fallible. Piracy, forgery, "refreshing" an old edition, and avoiding censorship have, over time, all caused publishers to be evasive or outright mendacious on their title-pages. Even where there is no apparent motive for duplicity, title-pages may sometimes be hard to reconcile with the book’s known publishing history. This paper discusses such a case from the 1880s.

The London publishing house, Richard Bentley and Son, purchased the publication rights to Mrs Campbell Praed’s Miss Jacobsen’s Chance for one year from September 1, 1886. The timing of serial publication and Praed’s personal correspondence with Bentley indicate that the manuscript was completed by the end of June 1886 and that proofs were already being forwarded to Praed by Bentley prior to this date. However, all the available evidence suggests that the book, still bearing the date, "1886", was not actually released until May 1887, when the publishing contract had only three months to run. Given that a publisher with only a year’s licence on a book would be keen to get the book out into the market as soon as possible, this raises fascinating questions:

* Why was there an eleven-month delay in publishing this book when Praed was at the height of her popularity and Bentley had only a limited tenure on the copyright?
* Why did Bentley issue it with a five-month-old title-page when he could easily have spruced it up with a new first gathering?

This paper discusses the evidence available from correspondence and publishing records in order to reconstruct a possible scenario. In doing so it canvasses some of the constraints on fiction publishers in the Victorian period.

"Snooping Spinsters and the Petticoat Police: the Origins of the Female Detective"

Lucy Sussex

The early history of crime fiction offers the researcher a chance to play literary detective, with many textual mysteries and "whodunnits" yet to be resolved. One of the most interesting questions is the origins of the female detective. Miss Jane Marple, V. I. Warshawsky, et al are among the most significant protagonists in crime fiction, with the "feminist detective" a modern publishing phenomenon. Yet the precursors of these popular figures remain largely out of print, unknown and unread.

This paper will examine the "first" female police detectives, which considerably preceded the advent of women in the police force. The 1864 texts The Revelations of a Lady Detective and The Female Detective represent an intriguing literary puzzle, it being still unclear which came first, and who their authors were, let alone whether these firstperson "memoirs" were by male or female authors. Why did two female police detectives appear in the same year, with no equivalent figures appearing until the end of the nineteenth century?

The paper will also seek the origins of the female (amateur) detective in the Gothic of Ann Radcliffe and her imitators. A subgenre of inquisitive and crimeavenging heroines can be found in works by a number of diverse authors, including Austen and Gaskell. The snooping spinster can be described as a motif (in the Tomashevskian sense). This motif can be found in various early Victorian fictions, and not only in texts usually described as crime. Marion Halcombe in Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (1860) has been seen as an anomalous and ultimately ineffective precursor of the female detective, but she is in fact part of a older tradition, with its own rigid literary conventions.

"Snooping Spinsters and the Petticoat Police" will thus offer an alternate view of crime fiction's origins and influences. One example ‹ the popularly-regarded beginning of detective fiction is in 1841, with Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", and yet in the same year appeared a bestselling novel with no less than three female detectives.

"Relative Editing: Hugh McCrae and his Grandmother's Journal"

Thérèse Weber

In the early 1930s Hugh McCrae first started seriously considering producing a major non-fiction prose work. Up until this time his work had appealed only to the readers of poetry and, with The Du Poissey Anecdotes, the limited number of people who would have understood the joke. The print runs reflected this. From the 1920s poetry increasingly lost its appeal for the popular reader, and local publishers were interested primarily in novels. McCrae must have craved for a best-seller, and realised that the answer lay in prose. However he did not have confidence in his own abilities to invent a story or novel, but needed to work on a pre-existing base, as he wrote to his sister Helen: ‘in prose, I can supply ribs; but the backbone’s got to be provided.’

The ‘backbone’ to which McCrae is referring here, is made up of the manuscripts and notebooks of his father and grandmother, clearly seen by McCrae as raw material, waiting to be shaped and crafted into publishable items. Georgiana’s Journal, the diary of Hugh McCrae’s grandmother Georgiana Huntly Gordon McCrae and edited by Hugh, was originally published in lavish style in 1934 to coincide with the centenary of Melbourne. Despite fluctuating sales, particularly in its early years, the book is still in print today, and has been routinely used as a source-book for historians and anthologians. However it is now apparent, particularly since the publication of Brenda Niall’s biography, Georgiana, in 1994, that there are major problems with Hugh McCrae’s edition. Motivated in part by a desire to protect family sensitivities, but also by his own pride as a writer, Hugh McCrae substantially rewrote the journal.

I will commence this paper with a description of the 1934 edition and show how bibliographic features act both to obscure the editorial flaws of the edition, and, interestingly, offer subtle clues to some of the problems in the book. I will also discuss some of the more flamboyant changes the editor made to the manuscript text, and the need for a new edition.