Vorliegendes Werk bildet die Ergänzung zu der 1907 erchienenen Berliner Inauguraldissertation des Herausgebers: Entehungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte von Thomsons 'Winter'. ebst historisch - kritischer Ausgabe der 'Seasons'. (Teil I: Abandlung.) 124105 SOMUL OROHMATZ CHADU VIRAVIMU Weimar. R. Wagner Sohn. Argument (1730) p. 7 Text of Spring A (1728) with Title-page of first ed. (1726, March) p. 235 - Dedi- cation (1726, March) p. 237 Preface to second ed. with three commendatory poems on Thomson (1726, June) p. 229 Argument (1730) p. 247 Text of Addenda and Corrigenda. 339 INTRODUCTION A variorum edition of The Seasons, a task often promised but never fulfilled, would be a boon to students of English literature. EDMUND Gosse. THE present edition of Thomson's "Seasons" is the first to reproduce the original texts of the Seasons together with all the various readings of the later editions. Efforts to accomplish such a work had been made long ago, e. g. by Wordsworth, Dyce, Bell, Peter Cunningham, and others, but as the enormous mass of alterations grafted upon the first texts by the author in later years checked any attempt of appending all the variants to a single text, the task was invariably abandoned. Indeed, if the somewhat unusual difficulties were to be surmounted, an apparatus not commonly employed in ordinary editions was required. In order to enable the student to obtain a clear idea of the development of the texts and of the innovations peculiar to each revision, it has been thought advisable to reprint the first texts in full and to add the alterations of the various later publications under separate historically arranged headings (B, C, D etc.), instead of throwing the whole matter into one continuous footnote and leaving to the reader the trouble of putting together for himself the variations belonging to the respective texts. According to the scheme adopted in the present edition authorised, it might be claimed, by Thomson's own way of emendating his "Seasons", viz. of always executing his corrections on the last text without ever referring to an earlier one the various readings occurring in the later editions are quoted only once, in reference to text where they first appear. It is, therefore, understood that those variants which were not replaced by many for the footnotes of a single text, and resort to the means of parallel texts was found necessary; in the case of Winter" the printing in full of three texts was requisite. In the reproduction of the texts the original spelling and punctuation have been faithfully adhered to,1) except that the words printed in italics in the original texts have not been thus distinguished in the present edition (the use of italics being reserved for alterations in the later fully printed texts), and that Thomson's way of printing whole words in capital letters has not been followed. (Words printed in capitals, in the original editions have been rendered by small ordinary letters; they have been supplied with a capital initial only in the cases of proper names and in the case of a large-sized capital being placed at the beginning of the word in the original editions, e. g. RURAL GAME or. ed. = rural game crit. ed. Aut. A. 359, BRITISH FAIR or. ed. British Fair crit. ed. Aut. A. 561.) Since the clearness of the whole would have suffered, if the comparatively unimportant variations of spelling and punctuation had been introduced into the footnotes together with the verbal alterations, a special place has been assigned to the former variants (pp. XII—XXII). As to the spelling, it is noteworthy that in all the original editions, with the exception of the quarto of 1730 and the separate octavo editions of the Seasons founded upon this text and published before 1738, the nouns begin with a capital letter. In the preparation of the 1744 edition of his "Seasons" Thomson was assisted by a friend, as is manifest from a copy of the first volume of "The Works" 1738 preserved in the British Museum Library (C. 28. e. 17). The interleaves of 1) A few obvious misprints which have been corrected will be found enumerated in the lists on pp. XII-XXII. The numbering of the lines has been likewise rectified, or introduced where it did not exist. |