Trieste-Zurich-Paris
1914-1921
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
The present reprint of the critically edited reading text of UlyssesЧfirst published as the so-called СCorrected TextТ in 1986Чstands corrected, as it must, in two readings: СBullerТ at 5.560 and СThriftТ at 10.1259. This is the net outcome of the massive onslaught on the critical editing of Ulysses in the New York Review of Books of 30 June 1988 and elsewhere. Beyond that, the scholarly debate (where it takes and accepts the Critical and Synoptic Edition of 1984 on its own terms) leads, or would lead, to very few changes indeed to the reading text. The procedures of establishing that text, which is the text as it appears realized in this reprint, are grounded and documented in the apparatus of the critical edition. A textual modification in the present reprint alone would be without such a foundation, and no editorial changes have therefore been made.
The alterations I felt inclined towards, but did not introduce, are the following:
at 1.562, for СWeТre always tiredТ read СIТm always tiredТ
(as by JoyceТs instruction in an unpublished letter cited in Antony HammondТs review in The Library, 6th ser., 8 [1986], p. 387)
at 16.1804-1805, for the phrasing Сwas not quite the same as the usual handsome blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering afterТ read Сwas not quite the same as the usual blackguard type they unquestionably had an indubitable hankering afterТ
(an alternative editorial response to a complicated interrelationship of stages of the textТs development where John KiddТs discussion in the New York Review of Books has suggested that the edition momentarily failed to observe its stated rules of procedure)
at 17.314-315, for СMr BloomТ read СMrs BloomТ
(an emendation which, according to David HaymanТs conjecture in Sandulescu Hart, Assessing the 1984 СUlyssesТ [1986], the context demands, though Joyce never made the change)
As a whole, this critically edited text of Ulysses stands, and remains standing, as the result of its considered premises and reasoned scholarly procedures.
Hans Walter Gabler
August 1993
AFTERWORD
Praised as an epochal scholarly event and denounced as a scandal, the critical and synoptic edition of James JoyceТs Ulysses first published in 1984, together with the corrected text that was published separately in 1986, has received extraordinary publicity for a work of its kind.1 Its editing procedures have lifted the general public, students, literary critics, and scholarsЧthe vast majority of whom are not themselves editorsЧto a heightened awareness of textual editing. With readers now beginning to realize that editions should be scrutinized and assessed as carefully as interpretations have always been, users of the 1986 reading textЧwhich in this new printing remains available worldwideЧneed to be aware of how Hans Walter Gabler, supported by an international team of collaborators and advisors, arrived at its text and of how this edition resembles and also differs from others that might be produced. This is crucial now that the copyright protection for the first-edition text of Ulysses has expired in most of the world and will end soon in the United States, with the result that many editions are becoming available.
When dealing with a scholarly edition, readers should know something about the theoretical assumptions behind it and about the procedures that were adopted to produce it. On the face of it, accomplishing the goal of offering a text of a work that is more accurate than any that have appeared before might seem fairly simple: find out what the author wanted, clear away the errors, and you have it. But authors are rarely so cooperatively tidy: they change their minds; they destroy or discard documents once they have moved beyond them; they make changes in person, by phone, or via e-mail. Then other people get involved: a typist types, or a printer sets, something different from what the author wrote; a publisherТs editor changes the text, with or without the authorТs consent or sometimes with the authorТs active encouragement. Moreover, determining the order and relative importance of the surviving documents can be complicated. Is one edition earlier or later than another? Was the author involved at all in a particular editionТs production? Because of gaps in the available evidence and of inconsistencies or other complications in the surviving evidence, an editor needs a theoretical approach to the task and a set of procedures that follow from the assumptions.