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


Textual History Group Project:
Composition
 


In writing a composition history, one takes primary and secondary evidence from two types of sources: biographical and textual.

Biographical Resources

Primary biographical sources:

Secondary biographical sources:

Benjamin Disraeli's letters for example provide one of the few extant descriptions about the composition practices of his friend, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington:

"Miladi here writes ten hours a day."

Textual Resources

Primary textual sources:

  • Authorial manuscripts or typescripts
  • Comments of publishers or editors who vetted the work prior to publication; one typically finds this sort of materials in the correspondence between an author and a publisher.
  • Authorial comments on proofs and other preliminary states of the text

Secondary textual sources:

  • Scholarly editions of the text
  • Scholarly articles examining composition or publication history, etc.