Germaine Warkentin wrote:
"I have heard it said that one of the paradoxes of early publishing
statistics is that the absence of extant copies may not indicate that a
book was issued in a small run, but that it was widely read; the copies
printed were used up and the edition is therefore scarcer. This point
was made with respect to early editions of Spenser's Faerie Queene (more
copies found) and Sidney's Arcadia (fewer) by the collector Dr. Bent
Juel-Jensen at a conference in 1986."
I wonder if this applies also at a later period. I have only anecdotal
evidence and cannot give the kinds of statistics John Barton has given us
for the "Principia", but it does appear that the third (1802) edition of
Wordsworth's "Lyrical Ballads" is a lot scarcer than the preceding two
editions.
As the reputation of the work grew, Wordsworth added a second volume and a
preface to the second edition. When it became clear that he had a large but
bemused public interested in his work he extended the preface considerably
for the third edition (which is, strictly, the third edition of volume one
and the second edition of volume two, and so marked on the title page of
each).
This extended preface (often referred to as the manifesto of the Romantic
movement) caters, not to specialist readers of poetry, but to a general
public that had become intrigued by Wordsworth's work, but required some
explanation. That in itself suggests that it was published in fairly large
numbers. Yet the 1802 edition appears to be a rarity compared with the
previous two editions, as noted (I think) by Ximenes Books in a recent
catalogue, and confirmed by my own (limited) observations as an interested
party (my own copy has "Rhymes for the nursery" written in pencil on the
title page of volume one, by someone who obviously scorned the book's mass
appeal!).
John R. Yamamoto-Wilson
e-mail: j-yamamo@hoffman.cc.sophia.ac.jp
website: http://pweb.sophia.ac.jp/~j-yamamo/
----- Original Message -----
From: Germaine Warkentin <warkent@chass.utoronto.ca>
To: Multiple recipients of list <exlibris@library.berkeley.edu>
Sent: 2000"N9OŽ8"ú 21:13
Subject: Re: Newton's "Principia"
> I have heard it said that one of the paradoxes of early publishing
> statistics is that the absence of extant copies may not indicate that a
> book was issued in a small run, but that it was widely read; the copies
> printed were used up and the edition is therefore scarcer. This point
> was made with respect to early editions of Spenser's Faerie Queene (more
> copies found) and Sidney's Arcadia (fewer) by the collector Dr. Bent
> Juel-Jensen at a conference in 1986. It is certainly true of early
> schoolbooks. Before concluding that the print run of the second edition
> of Newton's Pincipia was in reality smaller, it would make sense to
> examine the reception history of the work. I am subject to correction,
> but 150 extant copies would suggest to me a larger print run than 200,
> given the rate of attrition of even distinguished books.
> --
> ***********************************************************************
> Germaine Warkentin // English (Emeritus)
> Victoria College, University of Toronto
> 73 Queen's Park Crescent, Toronto, Ont. M5S 1K7, CANADA
> Fax: (416) 585-4584
> warkent@chass.utoronto.ca
> ***********************************************************************
>
>
>