The journey from written manuscript to printed page is not always an easy one. And although manuscripts nowadays are more likely to be digital, transforming an author's thoughts from a digital file on his or her computer to a printed page is in many respects still fraught with not a few of the uncertainties which afflicted authors' manuscripts much more frequently and profoundly during the handpress era.
Consider how accurately one's manuscript might be reproduced in print if the type for one's book was hand-set by compositors to whom one's text was being read--compositors who may or may not have the necessary type at hand, who then turn your handset type over to printers who may be a bit tipsy.... Let's just say that the printed page may not be a completely accurate reflection of what you actually wrote. (And if you revise your text after seeing the proofs, such inaccuracies might, for the same reasons, simply be compounded.)
This is one reason why variorum editions (from the Latin editio cum notis variorum editorum ["an edition with the notes of various editors"]) are so important for many authors. They allow later critics and editors to make a case for what an author really meant to say, poor transcriptions, typos, missing or damaged type, and similar prior publication imbroglios notwithstanding. These conjectural emendations usually are published alongside that of many other editors and critics going back, in some cases, several centuries.
Shakespeare, by near universal assent the greatest author ever to have written in the English language, has long been subject to this sort of scholarship. As respected London bookseller Peter Harrington points out in his notes for the set depicted below, the first variorum edition of Shakespeare's work, produced by Dr. Johnson in 1765, is the foundation text of modern Shakespearean scholarship:
This simply is another way of saying that such scholarship has not stood still. As additional evidence has come to light about earlier publications of Shakespeare's works, scholars have revised their ideas of what the Bard actually meant to say:
Inventions like the Hinman collator often upset centuries of scholarship (although they just as frequently reinforce what prior editors and critics have surmised about the textual authority of particular publications of an author's works). The replacement of mechanical collators with electronic collators suggests that variorum editions may be with us for yet a while longer, though whether or not this will necessarily benefit textual scholarship remains to be seen:
There is much no doubt that is exceedingly clever, but, taken as a whole, [such scholarship too often represents] an almost impenetrable mass of conflicting opinions, wild conjectures and leaden contemplations, a huge collection of antagonistic materials which, if not repulsive, is certainly appalling....
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