Post
by Antsy27 » July 7th, 2019, 7:09 am
I've been interested in doing the novel by Sarah Fielding (sister of Henry Fielding), "The Adventures of David Simple." This book was published in 1744 - a very early novel, written even before "Tom Jones." It's not on gutenberg.org, for whatever reason. Judging by what I've been reading in this thread, it might not be easy to find a copy that has no modern content, outside of scouring through antiquarian shops. My copy, published in 1998, "retains the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and italicization" of the first edition (as well as all 5 different-length dashes). The editorial content is primarily not in but around the text, including introduction, explanatory notes, other footnotes comparing the second edition, which was heavily edited by Henry Fielding, and other scholarly material; but there is also the correction of a few printing errors - typos, a couple of accidentally duplicated or missing words like "it" (some corrections based on a list of errata printed in another early edition). I think even gutenberg.org does some correction of that kind. The actual text, aside from those error corrections, seems to be entirely that of the original first edition. So I don't know if reading the text of this 1998 edition would be allowable, leaving out of course the added notes and other material which aren't part of the novel anyway.
I have been looking through Abebooks and found a company that publishes facsimiles of early editions of this book - but how readable they are is unknown. I also found another company that has this blurb on their version:
"About this Item: Franklin Classics, United States, 2018. Paperback. Condition: New. Language: English. Brand new Book. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant."
My question is, would an edition like that be acceptable, if the one I have is not?
Edit: Well, in looking again at the Wikipedia article on the author, I have finally found an on-line 1904 facsimile edition of the book, which I assume would be acceptable. The only problem is that that is the second edition with the extensive changes by Henry Fielding, and I would really prefer to read the original edition if possible. Most likely the Franklin Classics version is based on the second edition as well. Still, this would be better than nothing. It also has a 1904 introduction which I suppose would also be acceptable to include. This edition also doesn't contain the third volume, a sequel completing the story, which is included in the 1998 edition.
Last edited by
Antsy27 on July 7th, 2019, 7:46 am, edited 2 times in total.