(See Special Prospectus.)
Extract from the Editor’s Preface.
“The original numbers of The Tatler were re-issued in two forms in 1710-11; one edition, in octavo, being published by subscription, while the other, in duodecimo, was for the general public. The present edition has been printed from a copy of the latter issue, which, as recorded on the title-page, was ‘revised and corrected by the Author’; but I have had by my side, for constant reference, a complete set of the folio sheets, containing the ‘Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff’ in the form in which they were first presented to the world. Scrupulous accuracy in the text has been aimed at, but the eccentricities of spelling—which were the printer’s, not the author’s—have not been preserved, and the punctuation has occasionally been corrected.
“The first and the most valuable of the annotated editions of The Tatler was published by John Nichols and others in 1786, with notes by Bishop Percy, Dr John Calder, and Dr Pearce; and though these notes are often irrelevant and out of date, they contain an immense amount of information, and have been freely made use of by subsequent editors. I have endeavoured to preserve what is of value in the older editions, and to supplement it, as concisely as possible, by such further information as appeared desirable. The eighteenth century diaries and letters published of late years have in many cases enabled me to throw light on passages which have hitherto been obscure, and sometimes useful illustrations have been found in the contemporary newspapers and periodicals.”
HUTCHINSON, T.
LYRICAL BALLADS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND S. T. COLERIDGE, 1798. Edited with certain poems of 1798 and an Introduction and Notes by Thomas Hutchinson, of Trinity College, Dublin, Editor of the Clarendon Press “Wordsworth,” etc. Fcap. 8vo, art vellum, gilt top. 3s. 6d. net.
This edition reproduces the text, spelling, punctuation, etc., of 1798, and gives in an Appendix Wordsworth’s Peter Bell (original text, now reprinted for the first time), and Coleridge’s Lewti, The Three Graves, and The Wanderings of Cain. It also contains reproductions in photogravure of the portraits of Wordsworth (by Hancock, 1798) and of Coleridge (by Peter Vandyke, 1795), now in the National Portrait Gallery.
The publishers have in preparation further carefully annotated editions of books in English literature, to be produced in the same style as their edition of the “Lyrical Ballads”—not too small for the shelf, and not too large to be carried about—further announcements concerning which will be made in due course. It is not intended to include in this series, as a rule, the oft-reprinted “classics,” of which there are already sufficiently desirable issues.
Athenæum (4 col. review).—“Mr Hutchinson’s centenary edition of the Lyrical Ballads is not a mere reprint, for it is enriched with a preface and notes which make it a new book. The preface contains much that is suggestive in explaining the history and elucidating the meaning of this famous little volume. Mr Hutchinson’s notes are especially deserving of praise.”