A practical introduction to the aims, controversies, and procedures of scholarly editing

This collection of essays from world-renowned scholar Hans Walter Gabler contains writings from a decade and a half of retirement spent exploring textual criticism, genetic criticism, and literary criticism. In these sixteen stimulating contributions, he develops theories of textual criticism and editing that are inflected by our advance into the digital era; structurally analyses arts of composition in literature and music; and traces the cultural implications discernible in book design, and in the canonisation of works of literature and their authors. Distinctive and ambitious, these essays move beyond the concerns of the community of critics and scholars. Gabler responds innovatively to the issues involved and often endeavours to re-think their urgencies by bringing together the orthodox tenets of different schools of textual criticism. He moves between a variety of topics, ranging from fresh genetic approaches to the work of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, to significant contributions to the theorisation of scholarly editing in the digital age. Written in Gabler’s fluent style, these rich and elegant compositions are essential reading for literary and textual critics, scholarly editors, readers of James Joyce, New Modernism specialists, and all those interested in textual scholarship and digital editing under the umbrella of Digital Humanities.

Digital scholarly editing has a long-standing tradition in the humanities. It is of crucial importance within disciplines such as literary studies, philology, history, philosophy, library and information science, and bibliography. This volume shows how digital scholarly editing is still developing and constantly redefining itself.

This volume presents the state of the art in digital scholarly editing. Drawing together the work of established and emerging researchers, it gives pause at a crucial moment in the history of technology in order to offer a sustained reflection on the practices involved in producing, editing and reading digital scholarly editions—and the theories that underpin them. The unrelenting progress of computer technology has changed the nature of textual scholarship at the most fundamental level: the way editors and scholars work, the tools they use to do such work and the research questions they attempt to answer have all been affected. Each of the essays in Digital Scholarly Editing approaches these changes with a different methodological consideration in mind. Together, they make a compelling case for re-evaluating the foundation of the discipline—one that tests its assertions against manuscripts and printed works from across literary history, and the globe. The sheer breadth of Digital Scholarly Editing, along with its successful integration of theory and practice, help redefine a rapidly-changing field, as its firm grounding and future-looking ambit ensure the work will be an indispensable starting point for further scholarship. This collection is essential reading for editors, scholars, students and readers who are invested in the future of textual scholarship and the digital humanities.

This book provides an up-to-date, coherent and comprehensive treatment of digital scholarly editing, organized according to the typical timeline and workflow of the preparation of an edition: from the choice of the object to edit, the editorial work, post-production and publication, the use of the published edition, to long-term issues and the ultimate significance of the published work. The author also examines from a theoretical and methodological point of view the issues and problems that emerge during these stages with the application of computational techniques and methods. Building on previous publications on the topic, the book discusses the most significant developments in digital textual scholarship, claiming that the alterations in traditional editorial practices necessitated by the use of computers impose radical changes in the way we think and manage texts, documents, editions and the public. It is of interest not only to scholarly editors, but to all involved in publishing and readership in a digital environment in the humanities.

"Literary theory and textual criticism have much to teach each other," writes Philip Cohen, who has collected this anthology of essays that seeks to bridge what he sees as a wide rift between textual and literary critics. While most Anglo-American textual scholars now stress the importance of authorial intention and its key role in editorial and interpretative work, many literary theorists still tend to ostracize the author and his intentions from any serious literary discussion. The contributors to this collection, many of whom are well known for both their practical and theoretical work in editorial fields, look to recast in different ways the assumptions and working methods of Anglo-American editorial scholarship.