Quotations
Beginning of Text
Beginning of Endnotes
Within the text, differences between the 1851 and other editions are marked typographically:
Changed words and phrases are underlined.
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.
In the 1804 and 1811 texts, dialogue is usually punctuated as
“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.
With lingering gaze Edinian spring survey’d
for Edenian
The panic and general bustle... is yet well remembered by many
“is” for “are”
to level on the property of the former
common error or variant for “levy”
this measure, once adopted, her father must consent also
sentence structure is the same in all editions
constructed of several tier of hewed timbers
“tier” used as a plural
he should conduct in a very different manner
sentence structure is the same in all editions