Editing Historical Documents

Michael E. Stevens and Steven B. Burg are both at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

Historical editors have long wanted a reliable handbook that would provide easy access to the innumerable issues and practices that they daily deal with in their profession. Editing Historical Documents provides a wonderfully diverse examples of current documentary practice with full citations to the sources used as examples. With an emphasis on the descriptive rather than the prescriptive, this guide shows the range of options available to editors as they make the choices that will affect their editions and determine the policies and styles for the best possible rendering of their documentary collections. The handbook couples a lively, clearly written narrative of theory and practice with a selection of concrete examples drawn from the wisdom of generations of historical editors. The handbook is logically arranged and is readily accessible to the novice as well as the experienced documentary editor.

• chapter 1 About the Authorschapter 2 Prefacechapter 3 Introductionchapter 4 What, Why, How and for Whom?chapter 5 Selection and Arrangement of Documentschapter 6 General Principles of Transcription and Proofreadingchapter 7 Transcription: Types of Sourceschapter 8 Presenting the Textchapter 9 Principles of Annotationchapter 10 Forms of Annotationchapter 11 Special Issues of Access and Indexingchapter 12 Front and Back Matterchapter 13 Bibliography and Short Titleschapter 14 Index