Dr. Katherine D. Harris
English 201 (Fall 2007)


Textual History Group Project:
Textual Resources
 


Primary Textual Sources

The difficulties of trying to use primary resources are availability and access. In many cases, the materials are simply no longer available, especially in the case of proofs for major authors or in the case. Or the primary materials do exist, but remain unpublished, housed in special collections libraries here and abroad. In those cases, a researcher would have to visit the collections that hold the materials.  Steinbeck scholars have been traveling to both the SJSU Steinbeck Center as well as the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas.  While I don't expect you to travel to Salinas, I do expect you to access as many resources as possible in our Steinbeck Center. In other cases, the primary materials have been reproduced for researchers through a facsimile "editions." Really reproductions rather than editions, facsimiles offer page images of the original texts.


Secondary Textual Sources

Scholarly editions of the text:

Another way to gain access to information about primary materials is through an edition created by a textual scholar. A textual scholar in creating an edition typically consults primary documents and records (through notes or appendices) information about those documents. Therefore, though one may be unable to examine primary materials, one can use these apparati to gain additional information about composition practices.

Scholarly articles examining composition or publication history, etc.:

Often articles or books will discuss textual information as part of a larger discussion, focusing on interpretation. This is the case, for example, with Jerome McGann's Fiery Dust which examines Lord Byron's idea of man as a spirit-infused body. Make sure to do the appropriate MLA, JSTOR, ProjectMuse and King Library catalog searches on your text.