Making the Archives Talk

James L. W. West III is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at The Pennsylvania State University and general editor of Penn State Studies in the History of the Book. He has published some twenty scholarly editions—among them editions of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise and Trimalchio; and William Styron’s Inheritance of Night and Letters to My Father. West’s books include American Authors and the Literary Marketplace Since 1900 (1988), William Styron: A Life (1998), and The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King (2005). He has been awarded fellowships and grants from the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Academy in Rome. West has held Fulbright appointments in England at Cambridge University and in Belgium at the Université de Liège.

“This collection of essays is enthralling to read for many reasons: the author’s unique perspective on book history, his insight into the field of scholarly editing, and, especially, a scholar’s detailed use of archival collections.”—Cheryl Oestreicher Archival Issues

• ContentsList of IllustrationsIntroduction1The Scholarly Editor as Biographer2Editorial Theory and the Act of Submission3Fair Copy, Authorial Intention, and Versioning4Alcohol and Drinking in Sister Carrie5Double Quotes and Double Meanings in Jennie Gerhardt6Editing Private Papers: Three Examples from Dreiser7Toxic Words and the Editor8Did F. Scott Fitzgerald Have the Right Publisher?9The Internal Chronology of Tender Is the Night10Annotating Mr. Fitzgerald11Keeper of the Flame: Editing the Literary Remains of William Styron12The End Is NearAcknowledgmentsIndex