“To this place (said Melissa) have I taken....“
with some variation between brackets [ ] and parentheses ( ). In the 1870 text, dialogue has “modern” punctuation using single quotes:
‘To this place,’ said Melissa, ‘have I taken....’
The earlier versions are more likely to use “American” spellings such as “jail” (but “gaoler”) and “honor”; later editions (published in the U.S.) use “British” spellings such as “gaol” and “honour”. The older form “shew” appears only in the earliest editions.
The spelling “stupify” is used consistently, and “vallies” is almost universal. The spellings “discreet(ly)” and “discrete(ly)” seem to have been used interchangeably. Names in “New” such as “New London” were generally hyphenated in 1804; later versions have fewer hyphens, but they never disappear altogether.
The ampersand & appears a few dozen times in the original (1804) version; in 1811 most were changed to “and”, and in later editions it survived only in the form “&c.”
The 1804 and 1811 texts use “consolate” for “console” almost everywhere, and the name is spelled Wyllys, changed in later editions to Wyllis. The 1811 text consistently uses the spelling “whipperwill”, and often uses “come” and “become” for “came” and “became”. The 1851 text often uses non-standard spellings such as “visiter”, “suiter”, “persuit”. The 1870 text consistently spells “lilly” with two l’s, and uses “set” for “sit”; it often interchanges or omits “the/this/that” and similar.
In All Editions
With lingering gaze Edinian spring survey’d
for Edenian
The panic and general bustle ... is yet well remembered by many
“is” for “are”