http://airminded.org/2006/06/16/acquisitions-28/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=acquisitions-28 Airpower and British society, 1908-1941 Wed, 23 May 2012 10:08:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://airminded.org/2006/06/16/acquisitions-28/comment-page-1/#comment-1360 Brett Holman Sat, 17 Jun 2006 13:52:23 +0000 http://airminded.org/2006/06/16/acquisitions-28/#comment-1360 Exactly! You can pick up clues above and beyond what's in the text itself -- from my period, you can often get an idea as to the intended audience from the price info, or the publisher's catalogue in the back of the book. And I always worry that the texts might not be identical. Of course, most of the books I'm looking at didn't get a second edition, let alone a modern one, so the problem generally only arises for authors who are still read, like Wells, and their original editions can be expensive (not nearly so much as an original medieval text though, I suspect!) I've got a Shute, a Childers and another Wells or two I'd like to swap also ... Exactly! You can pick up clues above and beyond what's in the text itself -- from my period, you can often get an idea as to the intended audience from the price info, or the publisher's catalogue in the back of the book. And I always worry that the texts might not be identical. Of course, most of the books I'm looking at didn't get a second edition, let alone a modern one, so the problem generally only arises for authors who are still read, like Wells, and their original editions can be expensive (not nearly so much as an original medieval text though, I suspect!) I've got a Shute, a Childers and another Wells or two I'd like to swap also ...

]]> http://airminded.org/2006/06/16/acquisitions-28/comment-page-1/#comment-1332 Paul Gilster Sat, 17 Jun 2006 00:01:24 +0000 http://airminded.org/2006/06/16/acquisitions-28/#comment-1332 I run into this so rarely that I have to comment. I completely share your thoughts on using original editions where possible. My training is as a medievalist, and I can recall trying to accumulate, for a paper I was doing on Chaucer's translation of The Romance of the Rose, facsimile editions of the texts he would have had to have worked with. Using only a modern, annotated edition is a trap in various ways, not the least of which is the sense of context and situation afforded by the original. Well done! I run into this so rarely that I have to comment. I completely share your thoughts on using original editions where possible. My training is as a medievalist, and I can recall trying to accumulate, for a paper I was doing on Chaucer's translation of The Romance of the Rose, facsimile editions of the texts he would have had to have worked with. Using only a modern, annotated edition is a trap in various ways, not the least of which is the sense of context and situation afforded by the original. Well done!

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