Sale, William M

English

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The Library ChronicleVolume 3 | Number 3 Article 310-1-1935The Singer Copy of Sir Charles GrandisonWilliam M. SaleThis paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/librarychronicle/vol3/iss3/3For more information, please contact repository@pobox.upenn.edu.THE SINGER COPY OF SIR CHARLESGRANDISONBy William M. Sale, Jr.(Yale University)The bibliographical "state" of two volumes of SamuelRichardson's Sir Charles Grandison in the Godfrey F. Singercollection of the University Library is of exceptional—per-haps unique—importance in determining the original versionof a passage of the text. The condition of these volumes wasthe result of a piece of carelessness when the book was beingprepared for binding and publication in November, 1753, butthrough this mistake an unresolved problem in the biblio-graphical and textual approach to the book finds its solution.In Letter 37 of Volume II (misnumbered Letter 36 in thefirst edition, pp. 345-54) Dr. Bartlett sends to Miss Byron along account of his experiences abroad as governor for ayoung man of quality named Lorimer. This young man wasin every respect the antithesis of the impeccable Sir CharlesGrandison, and Dr. Bartlett constantly cited Sir Charles'svirtues in reproof of the misconduct of Lorimer. On oneoccasion, when Lorimer had practised a piece of trickery onhis father and was about to receive a doubled allowance as aresult, Dr. Bartlett exposed Lorimer to his father and wonthe son's bitter enmity. Lorimer, in connivance with acourtesan "infamous for ruining many young travellers by hersubtle and dangerous contrivances," planned revenge on Dr.Bartlett. At this point in the story, Richardson decided tocancel a leaf (pp. 349-50) in the first edition, so that thetext of the cancellans should read in part as follows: "Severalprojects they fell upon: One, in particular, was, to suborn aspy, who went to the Inquisitors of State, and accused theDoctor of having held a free discourse upon the nature of theVenetian Government; a crime, which in that watchful Re-public is never overlooked. It is well known, that the city ofVenice swarms with these spies: Who are employed by thegovernment, in order to give it the earliest information of43liberties taken either by natives or strangers, on subjects thatare thought too high for the discussion of private men; andthis, as is supposed, no less for the sake of the safety of in-dividuals, than for its own."One of the three Inquisitors of State, who make a dread-ful Tribunal in that Republic, it was supposed, got better in-formation of the Doctor's innocence, and had him warned ofhis danger."All copies of this volume of the first edition which I haveexamined here or in England, with the exception of the Singercopy, contain this text on a cancellans. It seemed, therefore,that the cancellandum containing the original version wouldnever be found. This cancellandum, however, may be foundin the Singer copy. But before describing it, I should liketo follow the text of this passage through the second, thirdand fourth editions. In the second edition of this volume,published in octavo simultaneously with the first edition induodecimo, Richardson also cancelled a leaf at this point inthe story (Volume II, pp. 247-48), so that the text here readsas it does in the first edition. But in the third edition, pub-lished four months after the appearance of the first and secondeditions, the text at this point varies from that of the earliereditions. For reasons which will soon become apparent Igive the text from the third edition: "Several projects theyfell upon : One, in particular, was, to accuse him, by a thirdhand, as concerning himself with affairs of state in Venice:A crime, which in that jealous republic, is never overlooked,and generally ends fatally for the accused; who, if seized, ishardly ever heard of afterwards. From this danger he nar-rowly escaped, by means of his general good character, andremarkable inoffensiveness, and the profligateness of his ac-cusers: Nor knew he his danger till many months afterwards.The Doctor believes, that he fared the better for being anEnglishman, and a governor to the son of a British nobleman,who made so considerable a figure in England; because theItalians in general reap so much advantage from the travellersof this nation, that they are ready to favour and encourage44them above those of any other." The fourth edition, pub-lished in 1762, a year after Richardson's death, has the textof the third edition.With this data at hand and without consulting the Singercopy, the only reasonable hypothesis would rest on the pred-ication of three versions of the text: (1) the original version,lost by cancellation; (2) the version on the cancellans of thefirst and second editions; and (3) a further revised text tobe found in the third and fourth editions. My hesitancy inaccepting this hypothesis derived from two sources. In thefirst place, the text of the passage in the first edition seems abetter one than that of the later editions. In the second place,the conditions under which the third edition was publishedmake it unlikely that this revision would have been made.The version of the first edition is more moderate in itsstatements, more circumstantial in its information, less bigotedin its point of view. The second version is touched with amelodramatic quality, and seems based on the kind of knowl-edge which a restricted mind like that of Richardson's mighthave received through rumour and cherished through pro-vinciality. We know that Richardson was aware of his limi-tations in describing foreign countries, and sought assistancefrom the informed in sketching the Italian scenes and incidentsin this novel. It does not seem likely that he would havechanged his text in the direction which the passages indicate.Furthermore, the difficulty which Richardson encounteredfrom Dublin book pirates, forced him to send seven hundredand fifty copies of his first edition to Ireland, thus reducingthe supply for English booksellers and accelerating the de-mand for a new edition. (The second edition did not meetthis general demand. It was a small one, published in octavoand selling at a considerably higher price.) Less than amonth after the publication of the first edition of this volume,Richardson was preparing a second edition in duodecimo—the third edition of the novel. His own press was extraordi-narily busy with a contract for the House of Commons, andhe was forced to secure the assistance of seven other printers45for his third edition. The texts of the other cancellans in thefirst edition are reproduced in the third edition, and there isapparently no such significant revision at any other point inthe volume except in this letter of Dr. Bartlett.This evidence is, of course, purely circumstantial : Richard-son might have changed his text for the worse, and he mighthave made a single revision between the two editions, no mat-ter how much difficulty was involved. But an examination ofthe Singer copy seems to resolve the problem in more likelyfashion. In this copy, which is a first edition, there is no can-celled leaf at pp. 349-50 of the second volume. Conse-quently, we have here the cancellandum, with the text as orig-inally projected. But instead of a third version, we find herethe inferior version which appeared in the third and fourtheditions. The reason for the cancellandum's appearance inthis set of Grandison appears when we turn to the corres-ponding leaf of the third volume in the Singer copy. Throughan error, the leaf was cancelled at this point in Volume III in-stead of in Volume II, and we find the cancellans which shouldhave been in the second volume appearing in the third volume.It is impossible to estimate in how many copies this mistakeoccurred. The only instance I have found is that of theSinger copy. I think we may assume, however, that a copyof the second volume in this condition was used for settingthe third edition. With the third edition in the hands of eightprinters, including Richardson, the mistake could easily havebeen overlooked.

The Singer Copy of Sir Charles Grandison

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