Stage III: Create your own edition

Ivor Gurney: Creating your Edition

You have now had an opportunity to look at all manuscripts and typescripts, and should have reached a decision on which one is to be your base manuscript. Your task now is to create the edition itself.

Before you start, use the above tabs to : Familiarise yourself with transcription notation Read through our brief example edition
Use the below manuscripts, this time with their diplomatic transcripts alongside, to create an edition. You should start with the transcript of your base manuscript and then make appropriate edits, ensuring to note the different manuscript variations at the bottom, to create an edition of the poem you think suits best.

When looking at the manuscripts you think MS B is the ‘base manuscript’ the nearest to the final version the poet managed. Select MS B and on the right hand panel you will see a diplomatic transcription where everything on the manuscript is recorded. Copy and paste the text into a word-processor. Now, using the methods outlined in ‘Diplomatic Transcripts’ and ‘Example Edition’ work through the other manuscripts – starting with MS A – and record down any things that are different (‘variants’). Think of the following questions:

Does any of it make you question your choice of base manuscript?

Piecing it together can you suggest an order in which the manuscripts were written?

What does it tell you about the poet and how they wrote a poem, how much thought they put into words and phrases?

What did they change and why?

When you are finished working through all the manuscripts and recording the variants you will have created your own edition of this famous poem! You can then select ‘Stage IV: Compare to published edition’ below.’

Diplomatic Transcription

In the transcripts below we have tried to remain as faithful to what you will see as possible, this is termed a 'diplomatic' transcription. Some notation which you may not be familiar with.

[..] indicates that something has been deleted \ .. / indicates that something has been inserted or written over an original text (a palimpsest) \...\ indicates a marginal insertion to the left, and /... / to the right // indicates a page break. e.g. p[?]\a/in[?]\ed/ - means a letter 'p' followed by something crossed out which is unclear (hence the ?), over which an 'a' is written, followed again by an unclear deletion, over which 'ed' is inserted.

Your task is to check through the transcription of the base manuscript, and tidy it up as you think would best suit your edition. You may want to alter the punctuation; you may want to remove any text which you think is superfluous to the poem itself. Once you have done this at the bottom of your edition you will need to record the variants in the other manuscripts (i.e. the two you have not chosen for your base text).

Example Edition

To illustrate how you would do this let us choose the first two lines of a nursery rhyme which hypothetically only survives in three manuscripts (X, Y, and Z)

Manuscript X
Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow
Manuscript Y
Mary had a small lamb
Its fleece was white as ice
Manuscript Z
Mary hid a little lamb
Its fleece was white as ice

Let us assume that we have looked at all the manuscripts and concluded that MS X will be our base manuscript. We then need to collate the variants held in Y and Z. In theory our sample edition could look like:

Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow
Variants: Line 1 - had] hid, MS Z; little] small, MS Y. Line 2 - snow] ice, MSS Y and Z.

To read this we could say 'Mary had a little lamb' is our accepted text but we have noticed the following variants: On line 1, the base manuscript has 'had' (indicated by being to the left of the ']') whilst Manuscript Z has 'hid'. Furthermore, on line 2 the base manuscript has 'snow' whilst both Y and Z have 'ice'.

In other words, we have the base text at the top of the page and we list the variants in the other manuscripts at the bottom. The system of noting variants via ']' is not set in stone, and many editors may employ a different practice. However, the important rules to note are:

Note all variants that you think are of significance Be consistent with your notation schemeExplain your editorial method, e.g. 'The base manuscript is X.'

Variants from other witnesses are noted at the bottom of the page, with the word in the body text placed to the left of ']' and the variant(s) to the right.

Browse Diplomatic Transcripts of the Gurney Manuscripts

MS A
MS B
MS C

Compare the diplomatic transcript to the manuscript.

(5) Strafe (2)

The "crumps" \are/ falling twenty to the
                       minute.
We crouch, and wait the end
           of it, - or us.
Just behind the trench, before,
           and in it,
The "crumps" are falling twenty
                   to the minute;
(O Framilode! O Maisemore's
               laughing linnet!)
Here comes a monster like a
               motorbus.
The "crumps" are falling twenty
           to the minute:
We crouch and wait the end
       of it-or us.

Strafe

The crumps are falling around us [crossed through] \twenty to/
           the (?) minute
We crouch, and wait the end
           of it, - or us
Just behind the trench, before and
               in it
The crumps are falling twenty
               to the minute;
(O Framilode, O Maisemores
           laughing linnet!)
Here comes a monster like a
the crumps are [motorbus...
           falling twenty
to the minute
We crouch and wait the end
       of it-or us.

Strafe

The "crumps" are falling twenty to the minute.
We crouch, and wait the end of it, - or us.
Just behind the trench, before, and in it,
The "crumps" are falling twenty to the minute;
(O Framilode! Or Maisemore's laughing linnet!)
Here comes a monster like a motor bus.
The "crumps" are falling twenty to the minute:
We crouch and wait the end of it - or us.

Ivor Gurney

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