Missing words and longer passages are shown in lighter type. Most of these represent text lost after 1804 (newspaper serial) or 1811 (first book publication).
Words and phrases missing from other editions—generally 1870—are shown on a grey background.
The editions used for comparison were:
1804
Weekly installments in The Political Barometer, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
This version was only available in an online transcription. A number of questioned words were checked with the transcriber, Hugh MacDougall of the Cooper Society.
1811
Plattsburgh, N.Y. “Printed For The Proprietor.”
The first of the pirated editions. Some copies have no author credit.
1851
Boston. “Printed for the Publishers.”
Attached to the end, without page break, is a short narrative poem with prose introduction, “Henry and Julia, a tale of real life” (omitted from this e-text).
1864
Philadelphia, Lippincott.
With two exceptions, this is a reprint of the 1851 edition, including obvious typographical errors and with identical punctuation. There is a new frontispiece (the 1851 edition had none). The “Henry and Julia” poem is omitted. Instead, the final page compresses the last two pages (one full page plus seven lines of text and a four-line footnote) of the 1851 edition into one, using a noticeably smaller font.
1870?
New York, Leavitt & Allen.
The date is hypothetical, based on librarian’s notation. The book is probably a reprint of the 1836 Boston edition, which has the same page count (significantly different from other known editions); 1836 is also a plausible date for the frontispiece.
General Differences
In the 1804 and 1811 texts, dialogue is usually punctuated as