This paper consists of the different components of the introduction to “The Wanderer: a Hypertext Edition” presently housed on the server of the University of Saskatchewan’s Digital Research Centre. All the contents of this paper are available as part of that edition, although in a somewhat different format. This thesis contains two parts: the general introduction concerns the poem’s contents, context, and manuscript circumstance while the editorial introduction argues the rationale for this edition and the particulars of my editorial decisions. The editorial introduction explores how the single extant manuscript witness of “The Wanderer” has been inaccurately represented in transcription as well as the importance of transparency in one’s choices as an editor. The editorial introduction explains how this edition’s principles of transparency and interpretation over authority are based on clear objectives that were made after a survey of scholarly resources freely available on the web that revealed a great need for a freely available critical edition. These principles inform the edition’s rationale and specific editorial choices. The product of such an introduction is an edition that presents its editorial decisions in a transparent manner so that the user can distinguish between aspects of the text present in the document and those introduced by the editor.

George MacDonald's last major work of fiction, Lilith, was published in 1895, but the first version of the romance was written in March of 1890. Lilith is an account of the unintentional journey of the protagonist into another world populated by both mythological figures drawn from the Judeo-Christian tradition and by horrific personifications of the psychological horrors of the protagonist's own mind. The story of Lilith describes the protagonist's experiences in this other world which bring him to the point of repentance. The manuscript of the first version, known now as Lilith A, is housed in the British Library along with seven other typed revisions and printer's proofs. Taken together, the A-H manuscripts of Lilith represent the complete production history textual evolution of what is arguably MacDonald's greatest literary work. The body of this paper contains the 161 page transcription of Lilith A produced from the original manuscript and a microfilm photographic reproduction provided by the British Library. The introduction of this paper outlines the history of Lilith A, describes it's similarities and differences with the published version, provides a bibliographic description of the manuscript, and outlines the editorial principles used in producing the transcript of the text. The introduction is followed by a transcription of the title page created for the manuscripts of Lilith by Winifred Louisa, Lady Troup, who was MacDonald's daughter and amanuensis. This title page is followed by the transcription of Lilith A. / Master of Arts

This thesis involves both editorial practice and literary analysis. In order to establish an editorial framework for the electronic scholarly edition of Dr. Ralph Barnes Grindrod's pamphlet <em>Slaves of the Needle</em>, I examine current issues in electronic textual editing. In the electronic scholarly edition, approximately twelve of the pamphlet's thirty-five pages are transcribed and encoded using TEI-based code. The second aspect of my master's thesis concerns the depiction of seamstresses in nineteenth-century British literature. <em>Slaves of the Needle</em> provides a non-fiction counterpart to the fictional seamstresses of mid-nineteenth-century literature. Using <em>Slaves of the Needle</em> as a basis for evaluating the accuracy of mid-nineteenth-century characterizations of seamstresses, I show that authors such as Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Ernest Jones, and Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna were familiar with the working conditions of seamstresses. By conducting a close reading of certain representations of the seamstress in both fiction and non-fiction, I develop a theory of why the depiction of some aspects of the seamstress story are more accurate than others.

This thesis involves both editorial practice and literary analysis. In order to establish an editorial framework for the electronic scholarly edition of Dr. Ralph Barnes Grindrod's pamphlet <em>Slaves of the Needle</em>, I examine current issues in electronic textual editing. In the electronic scholarly edition, approximately twelve of the pamphlet's thirty-five pages are transcribed and encoded using TEI-based code. The second aspect of my master's thesis concerns the depiction of seamstresses in nineteenth-century British literature. <em>Slaves of the Needle</em> provides a non-fiction counterpart to the fictional seamstresses of mid-nineteenth-century literature. Using <em>Slaves of the Needle</em> as a basis for evaluating the accuracy of mid-nineteenth-century characterizations of seamstresses, I show that authors such as Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Ernest Jones, and Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna were familiar with the working conditions of seamstresses. By conducting a close reading of certain representations of the seamstress in both fiction and non-fiction, I develop a theory of why the depiction of some aspects of the seamstress story are more accurate than others.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 73 p. + HTML presentation (ports., facsims.). Includes an HTML document: A lecture on John Brown by "Porte Crayon" alias David Hunter Strother, an annotated edition with primary materials by Hilary Attfield. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation presents an edition of six poems from John Donne’s Songs and Sonets—“The Indifferent,” “Love’s Usury,” “The Will,” “The Funerall,” “The Primerose,” and “The Dampe”—and a digital edition of one additional poem, “To His Mistress Going to Bed.” Using the methodologies of The Variorum Edition of the Poems of John Donne, I have also adopted the edition’s principal goal—to recover and present Donne’s exact texts to the extent that this is possible. For each poem, I have selected a copy-text and emended it in accordance with the Variorum’s principles. A textual introduction for each poem explains how the copy-text was chosen and traces the circulation of the text in all seventeenth-century artifacts. I have also provided a textual apparatus for each poem, which, in addition to recording the texts collated, emendations to the copy-text, imperfections in the sources, and indentation patterns in the sources, also notes all verbal variants and variants of punctuation. Finally, I have created a stemma charting the transmissional history for each poem and giving a visual representation of how the textual artifacts relate to each other. The other major component of my dissertation, a digital edition of “To His Mistress Going to Bed,” is meant to serve as a prototype for what might usefully be done with Donne’s poems in a digital medium. While the actual digital edition of this poem cannot be fully represented on paper, my chapter on this edition outlines the process I used to create it and describes its major features. The digital edition itself can be found at <http://donnevariorum.tamu.edu/resources/tohismistress/tohismistress.html>.