Section 2. Transcribing the worksheets
© 2017 Tony Laing, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0092.04
Basic issues
This section describes the more obvious difficulties of transcribing the worksheets and discusses how the transcription deals with them. They include the problem of representing the layout of the worksheet and the size of lettering, as well as giving an accurate account of words, punctuation, common abbreviations, deletions, corrections and underlining.
Layout of the worksheet
The transcription represents the worksheet by a rectangle drawn approximately to the scale of the original, about eleven centimetres from top to bottom and seventeen and a half from side to side. It is divided by a vertical dotted line showing where Dickens folds then flattens the original to form two equal halves. The rectangle, with entries grouped and positioned as in the original, reveals the ease with which he moves or glances to and fro between what is sometimes misleadingly called ‘pages’, here referred to as the left- and right-hand halves (or sides) of the worksheet.28
Entries are regularly organised into groups, often laid out as a list, with the groups separated by small idiosyncratic diagonal slashes (see below p.22). As Dickens moves down the page, he is well practised in maintaining a notional horizontal. In the worksheets for central instalments that tend to be more crowded, he sometimes uses a consistently sloping line—perhaps with a matching slope to its margin—in order to use space more effectively (or occasionally from haste and impatience). The spacing of lines or words, at one point the spread of syllables on the line, is sometimes significant (Ws.412 p.51). The leaf that is stuck over the unused left-hand half of Ws.5 is a unique but indicative example of Dickens’s sensitivity to layout for expressive purposes. For the facsimile and transcription of Ws.5a, see below p.60; for its commentary see p.61. [Editor’s note: the abbreviation for a worksheet ‘Ws.’ with the number of its instalment is often followed a smaller subscripted number which refers to a numbered entry in the margin of the transcription. If the context makes it clear which worksheet is under consideration, then its marginal numbers are simply shown in brackets, as, for example, in the final paragraph of this subsection].
Although the transcription generally preserves many of the effects of layout, it struggles to deal with some inevitable difference between type and the written word. If transcription were to preserve the pleasing layout of type that the modern reader takes for granted, the horizontal positioning of each word would create many anomalies, particularly at the line end. The line of type would often end a long way short of the right-hand edge, perhaps leaving the reader to wonder why Dickens does not spread his entries towards the right. On the other hand, if the starting point of each word relative to the left-hand edge of the page were to match exactly that of the written word in the original—where Dickens expands and occasionally contracts the length of each word by the way he forms letters and makes ligatures—then the arbitrary gaps between words (or the lack of them) would seem strange.
Always matching the line beginnings, the transcription steers a middle course between matching the position of each word either to the left-hand margin or to the end of the previous word. As the discrepancy begins to arise between the start of words in transcription and the original, it imitates the length of the gaps between words in the original, by regularising the gap to one, two, three or four spaces. This preserves the appearance of the hand’s movements across the page but adjusts the difference in length between the typed and written word—unless of course there is a change in letter size of the original, which is usually represented in transcription by increasing or decreasing the size of the font.
The effect of the compromise in positioning can be best appreciated through examination of a short passage. Compare for example the final entries of Ws.5 in transcription and facsimile.29 In transcription, the order of entry is clearly (16), (15) and (17). The first entry “Paul’s death” (16) in size and spacing is fourteenpoint; the second entry (15) in size and spacing is ninepoint, but with double spaces between the words after the stop; the final entry (17) in size and spacing is tenpoint, but with double or triple spaces in the inquit “said Miss Tox” and what follows, except for the phrase “Dombey and Son’s” sized and spaced in eightpoint. All of these changes follow comparable alterations in Dickens’s handwriting. By so doing, it conveys an impression of the way words are grouped in the manuscript. Occasionally, the layout of both transcription and the original seems visually to correspond to the rhythm of the spoken voice that sometimes seems to accompany the silent reading of Dickens’s prose at moments of heightened feeling.
Lettering
As much as layout, it is the lettering—its size and hand—that confirms the unity of each group. Every sheet shows how skilful and well-practised Dickens is with a quill, varying his lettering for example in the facsimile and transcription of Ws.3 pp.46–7 from very large for emphasis e.g. “Old child” (15), to an extreme “smallhand”—his own word to describe his smallest hand—marking small but significant details, e.g. “Mirrors – hearth-rugs” (9); see p.47. To represent contrasts in size the transcription uses a full range of font sizes from eight to sixteenpoint. The representation of other qualities of the lettering is examined below in ‘Special issues’, p.18.
Punctuation marks and common abbreviations
Dickens’s versions of common abbreviations and punctuation marks are transliterated in the usual way, e.g. qy, etc, &, No/s and Mr; similarly the stop, comma, colon, semi-colon, question and exclamation mark. His variation of long and short dashes seems in most instances random or insignificant. They are both transcribed thus ‘–’, except where occasionally a series of short dashes falling between items seems to imply that the items are in some way equivalent, in which case they are transcribed thus ‘-’, for example, in the transcription of Ws.1 p.39, compare ‘–’ in (1), (2) (3) with ‘-’ in (7).
Deletions and corrections
The wording of the corrections of the worksheets is closest to that of Harry Stone’s in his transcriptions, with the difference that more weight is given to Dickens’s likely intentions with regard to initial letters. A greater degree of freedom has also been taken in conjecturing partly obscured deletions (For Stone’s approach to these issues, see Dickens’ Working Notes for His Novels, edited by Harry Stone (University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp.xxxii–iii. Hereafter ‘Stone’).
Dickens makes few deletions in the working notes compared with the heavily revised manuscript of the novel. Some worksheet revisions are running corrections, i.e. immediate second thoughts that are made as he writes. Most are revisions to drafts of text for chapter titles, closing texts for chapter endings, or the “letterings” for illustrations.
In making changes to chapter titles, Dickens deletes in his usual way, either by striking through words with a horizontal line, or by covering them with loops that largely obscure what lies beneath. Because of the complexity of the revisions to some chapter titles, transcription of deletions occasionally requires three different ways to show the history of deletion (see ‘Deletion in transcription’, p.35). The order of the revisions to many chapter titles is revealed by changes in layout, hand, and the positioning of the broken double underlines.30
Title revisions are made at different stages, some as he writes, others at a later stage, perhaps when he is finishing the chapter, or occasionally when he has moved on to a subsequent chapter. Late revisions are particularly obvious when they involve a change in colour, as they do in ch.26 and ch.33. Having written the first half of ch.26 in black, he writes the second half of the chapter in blue and returns to enter the title in blue. Similarly, after writing ch.33 in black and leaving the chapter untitled, he returns to title ch.33 in bright blue, during the composition in bright blue of ch.34.
Underlining for meaning
Dickens makes consistent use of emphatic underlines. Varying in weight and number, usually single or double and always continuous, they accentuates the importance of a word or entry. The source of the import varies. Sometimes they foreground an incident or character for their future significance. Sometimes they mark an idea, image, symbol, or rhetorical device that will be repeated in later contexts. Occasionally they simply confirm a decision.
He also uses less formal but still distinctive lines, as signs or gestures to convey information of different sorts, including transposition in the facsimile of Ws.15, inclusion in Ws.1615 p.107, his pleasure or relief at completing a task (see the many ‘signing off’ underlines, e.g. in the transcription of Ws.107 p.83 or of Ws.1336 p.95).
In transcription, lines are drawn to show their position, length and density and, very occasionally, some other distinctive quality such as curvature, where the nib opens and closes in response to changing pressure, e.g. in the transcriptions of Ws.69 p.63 and Ws.107 p.83.
Conventional double underlining
Dickens employs two sorts of routine double underlines. He uses a continuous double underline for the title of each instalment, and broken double underlines for the heading of each chapter number and title.
The broken double underlines of chapter number headings—a part of Dickens’s preliminary preparations—are usually deliberate and unhurried, varying the number of breaks he makes with the length of each heading. In contrast, the broken double underlines given to chapter titles, in the early numbers especially, are often hurriedly executed, their frequent corrosion suggesting that the underlines are drawn quickly, sometimes for more than one chapter at a time. In later chapters, in titles as well as number headings, each stroke is usually shorter, more evenly made and more closely matched to its partner, reflecting his growing confidence in the format of the worksheet.
At the start, he usually leaves provisional titles unmarked, only applying broken underlines to his final choice (most exceptions are in ch.1). From Ws.2 onwards, he makes the decision to revise titles in manuscript—underlining all versions—and to transfer only the final underlined title to the worksheet (an early exception is ch.8). The general effect of the decision on the appearance of titles in the worksheet is to make them more prominent, and in the manuscript—with the deletions, revisions, insertions and broken underlines—to make the order of entry more distinct. (For the history of the entry of chapter titles, see column (4) in ‘Appendix B’; for the revisions, see ‘Appendix D’).
In transcription, all routine underlines, whether continuous or broken, are best made ‘drawn’, i.e. made by inserting a drawn object, as opposed to typographical underlining. Even so, transcription represents broken underlines very approximately. Each stroke of the pair of broken underlines is reduced to a straight line, approximate as to length, angle and position, but showing the appropriate degree of blackness and of thickness, as Word 2010 defines them.31
The diagrammatic simplification reveals how the second stroke of each pair often leads to the first of the next pair, how Dickens sometimes tends to put a little more pressure on the quill, as he enters the first and last pair, and how each pair tends to fall away from the horizontal towards the end of the group as a whole—all variations that are reminders of a busy writer at work (see, for example, the right-hand entries in Ws.8 p.74).
Special issues
This section examines the more problematic aspects of transcribing. It describes types of significant corrosion, changes in density that ensue from alterations in hand pressure or changes of quill, the variety of Dickens’s coloured inks, and his idiosyncratic diagonal slashes—and how all are imitated or represented in transcription.
Corrosion
The black iron-gall ink that Dickens uses poses a tantalising problem. It has, in many instances, corroded through oxidisation to various shades of yellowy brown. The process of decay is dependent on a number of factors acting together: in the environment, in the constitution of the ink, and in the writer’s hand. In the case of the latter, for example, alterations in speed, pressure, angle of the stroke can affect the density of the ink, which in turn may make it more liable to corrode. Such a multiplicity of interrelated causes complicates interpretation. Nevertheless, a corroded group of entries does reveal a relationship—of some sort, and from whatever reason—to its surroundings.32
A proportion of entries, in what is called ‘non-corroding black’, seem to be unaffected. Other entries, which are only corroded in part, with random changes to single words, letters or strokes, can be discounted. What remains are those groups of entries that are discoloured, so that they appear either a consistent shade of brown throughout, or a shade of brown that becomes lighter as the entry or entries advance.
In the first case, where corrosion is unvarying, it seems reasonable to see consistent corrosion as significant because, when the corrosion ends, it signals a pause or break in Dickens’s note-making. He stops and resumes in a way that results in a cessation of corrosion and change in a contrast, perhaps with a different hand, ink or quill. Consistent corrosion contributes to the perception of the relationship between groups, particularly in the more crowded right-hand entries of the worksheets of the third quarter, for example in the right-hand of Ws.11 p.87 separating the consistently corroded (11)–(15) from non-corroded (19)–(21) but drawing together (19)–(21) and (25)–(27). In Ws.15, the effect of consistent corrosion helps determine the order of entry; it increases the probable concurrence of the left-hand number plans (1) and (2) with the title and plan for ch.48 (later 47) made in entries (24)–(31). There is often a marked contrast—caused by consistent corrosion of a less dense ink and lighter hand—in late final entries made on the lower left-hand half, for example, Ws.46 p.51, 69 p.63 and 75 p.71.
In the second case, because corrosion is progressive, it must have an immediate cause, perhaps a delay in re-dipping, or repeated re-dipping with a rapid loss of flow, or a simply a reduction in quill pressure to conserve a drying pen. Whatever the cause however, progressive corrosion happens relatively quickly, confirming that the affected entries are delivered by the same quill on the same occasion and followed by a pause or break. For example, when Dickens explains at some length the order of composition in No.15, his quill slowly dries, thinning the ink, which later corrodes (see Ws.156 p.103). Similarly, towards the end of his plans for Miss Tox’s visit to the Toodles family, he avoids re-dipping—in another final group of entries—and as the ink supply fails, it becomes thin and later progressively corrodes (see Ws.1222 & 23 p.91). The title and summary of ch.18 (later 17) and ch.19 are both similarly corroded and probably entered on the same occasion. However, in both groups of entries, corrosion is consistent at the start and progressive towards the end, which suggests that Dickens lightly re-dips his pen between chapter descriptions (see Ws.6 p.63).
In transcription, the imitation of corrosion is achieved by choosing the proportion of the principal constituent colours of brown (red and green) and varying the degree of transparency. Entries that are corroded to the same degree are imitated by an unchanging shade of brown. Entries that are progressively corroded are imitated in the same way, but also lightened by varying their transparency to show the degree and extent of the corrosion. In practice, the corrosion in any one worksheet is simplified to a broadly defined set of four or five contrasts, often more pronounced than in the original—to compensate for inevitable variations in colour and tone of different monitors, computers and printers.
Density
The density of black ink varies, producing a darker or lighter line. Apart from the transient darkening that can occur when a quill is re-dipped and is perhaps temporarily overloaded, a consistently denser or lighter line can arise from the cut of the nib or the flow of the barrel or from an increase or reduction in pressure (the latter especially when writing with smaller lettering or a faster hand). One or more of the quills used in the later worksheets give a much darker line, apparently more thickly cut. Occasionally a quill, with a poor nib or an unclean barrel or sullied ink, delivers an erratic ink flow (see, for example, Ws.6a recto and verso; and cf. their transcriptions, p.67).
Nevertheless, where density is consistent, it is often deliberate, and created by a lighter or heavier hand. Of course as a skilled draughtsman, Dickens varies the pressure with which he letters at will, e.g. when forming Roman numerals, he regularly makes them darker and larger than their surroundings. Generally, he is consistent in the density of those entries that he groups together. Like positioning and size, density contributes to the reader’s sense of the relation of one group to another.
Transcription of changes in density, as with corrosion, is mostly limited to two sorts of entries or groups of entries: those that are distinguished throughout by a consistent reduction in the density of their ink, whether by change in hand or quill, and those that show a progressive reduction. A consistent reduction in the density of black ink can usually be transcribed by the using of one of the five gradients of black singled out in Word 2010; progressive loss of density is always shown by thinning black to lighter shades of grey using its percentage ‘gradient’ facility.
The distinction between density and corrosion is often difficult to sustain, because it varies with different light. In the brief number plan of Ws.9 p.79, the entry “connect Carker and Edith” loses density at “before the wedding” (2) and again at “and get in Florence” (3) and perhaps again at “Mems” (1), presumably because Dickens lightens his hand to conserve the ink supply in the pen and avoid re-dipping. The changes in density, setting aside possible corrosion, are sufficient to confirm Dickens’s hasty afterthought “and get in Florence”.
Even so, the close relation of density and corrosion need not affect the transcription of changes in density, however small the changes are or unreliable their corrosion. For example, in Ws.1 p.39, most of the words of the first two left-hand entries (1) and (2) are both less dense and more evenly corroded than the next three entries (3)–(5), which are more varied but more dense and less corroded. However, the next entry (6), though tinged by corrosion is much darker that either of the two earlier groups (1)–(5) while the final entry (7) is slightly denser and more corroded than (1) and (2). The effect of this representation of density with corrosion is to confirm what is also conveyed by changes in lineation and letter size. The entries Ws.11–7 are made in four stages (1) and (2), (3)–(5), (6), and (7)—identified by size, layout, density and corrosion—which correspond in their sequence to the order of the narrative.
Compromises in the representation of density can be found in most worksheet transcriptions. In the part and chapter number headings for Ws.1–3, for example, Dickens uses a thin hand and enlarges the numerals. The size of these numerals can be conveyed by using a larger font. But the larger the font, the thicker and darker it appears. So to retain an impression of the relation of the number headings to their surroundings, the density of the larger type has been considerably reduced, which makes the dark lighter but still leaves it without the spidery character of the original.
To convey the effect of Dickens’s darkest entries, the transcription usually adjusts the density of the entries around them. The result can be seen in Ws.15 by comparing the right-hand half of the transcription with its facsimile. In the special case of the distinctive, probably consecutive, dark entries, which Dickens makes as he begins Ws.17, the transcription uses a bold type (see Ws.174, 5, 12 & 17 p.111, Ws.182, 5 & 6 p.115 and 19&202 & 13 p.119).
Despite the difficulties posed by very thin or very dark entries, the manipulation of density remains one of the more reliable ways of conveying contrast, even in those worksheets like Ws.15 or Ws.19&20 that are crowded with detail. It has often proved more useful to adjust the representation of density (and to be sure of the outcome) than to attempt to imitate too closely the degree of accompanying corrosion that seems to vary as the light changes.
Ink colour
A number of entries are written in a bright blue, a faint watery blue or a greeny blue ink. As none of the blue inks have iron derivatives in their mixture, they are not liable to corrosion. Although the quality of all the blue inks vary, the bright blue appears to be the most satisfactory. However, Dickens was probably unable to secure a reliable supply, so he tends to reserve what bright blue he has for whole chapters in the manuscript.
Bright blue is used to write all of No.7, most of No.9 and the last chapter of No.11, while in the worksheets for those numbers there are at most only three entries made in bright blue. The only use of bright blue for part of a chapter occurs in No.9 (see below). Evidence suggests that the two less satisfactory watery blue and greeny blue inks are not chosen but forced on Dickens by his temporarily living away from his usual residence. Each of the three uses of bright blue in the “List of Chapter Headings” follows soon after its use in the manuscript, confirming as might be expected that, despite a wish to conserve bright blue, Dickens moves on from completing a chapter to updating the List. ‘Appendix F’ summarises the consecutiveness of entries in blue, in the worksheets and all other tasks, showing if or when, and how often, they are interrupted by entries in black. The appendix is derived from a survey of the relevant commentaries.
In transcription, the range of blues in the original is represented by a brighter blue, a less faint blue and a more greeny blue—each made more distinct in transcription than it appears in the facsimiles. Headings in the accompanying commentary are coloured to match what is being described, as in the naming of colours in the previous sentence. The representation of colour, like that of density and corrosion, is intended not to copy but to show a contrast comparable to that of the original.
The marked difference between black and blue inks in transcription and commentary makes it easy to survey all of the monthly areas of work for changes in ink colour. If we examine, first of all, just those bright blue entries that are made in the worksheets, we find that most bright blue entries are consecutive. The exceptions are one entry in Ws.7 (see the unique entry (2) p.71) and the two changes to bright blue and back in Ws.9 (see below). Next, examining the commentaries for changes to bright blue ink, not just in the worksheets, but in all areas of work, we again find that most blue entries are consecutive. For No.7, all tasks in blue—from the composition and titling in manuscript to the planning and composition of the planned extension to ch.22—are consecutive (excepting Ws.72), as are the entries in faint watery blue in No.12 and in greeny blue in Nos.19&20 and 19&20a. In No.11, bright blue ink is used only once, for the composition of ch.34.
The use of blue ink in the production of No.9 is unusual, probably occurring because of changes to Dickens’s work routine, arising from his poor health during the first three weeks of May 1847. His temporary debilitating condition and some of its effects are described in the biographical headnote for Ws.9. The letters imply that he did not begin—“had not the heart to go at my number” (L5:69)—until very late in the month, after his arrival in Brighton to convalesce on 17 May. He probably takes a supply of black ink with him when he leaves town, just as he did when he returns to Devonshire Terrace from Broadstairs during the creation of No.12, and when he lodges again in Brighton (at a different address) in order to produce the double number.
Soon after arriving in Brighton however, he probably finds a supply of bright blue ink, and in the middle of writing ch.26 changes from black to the recently obtained bright blue—the only mid-chapter change of ink colour in the entire manuscript. In No.9, from then on, he reserves the bright blue ink, which he seems to prefer for composition, only reverting to a black quill and ink at the end of the ch.26 to plan briefly the remaining chs.27 and 28. The evidence for planning is strong (see commentary on ‘Plan for ch.27’, p.81) so the chapter descriptions cannot be written after the composition of chs.27 and 28. Still recovering from illness, he perhaps needed an early break from the physical effort of writing ch.26, notwithstanding the advantages of using bright blue—the ink gives a sharper line, with a flow that is more even and responsive, and dries more quickly. Only in the unusual conditions prevailing during the production of No.9 does Dickens alternate between inks, changing from black to blue and back on two occasions (see ‘Appendix F’, p.192).
Diagonal slashes
Dickens’s idiosyncratic slashes are short, slightly curved, diagonal lines, made in a controlled and consistent way, in order to separate them from what follows. Generally pulled from right to left, they are different in feel from underlines, which are pulled the other way as the hand and arm moves towards the right. The slash, comparable perhaps to a shorthand stroke, is usually made after a group, rather than before (shown for example by the colour change at Ws.126 & 8 p.91).
Dickens uses slashes in all worksheets, on the left- or right-hand side, except in the unique Ws.7. Their omission there, in the six left-hand entries, is unusual; he is relying apparently on colour and layout to make the groups distinct. Arguably, the omission of slashes at this early stage, confirms how deliberate they later become.
Slashes regularly separate entries or groups of entries, giving them weight and position in a sequence. They are always significant, used regularly in number planning, and in chapter plans used at the start, intermittently from Ws.4 and consistently from Ws.10 onwards.33 The slash is usually made at the start of a line or sometimes, when space is at a premium, mid-line or even towards the end of a line (see the last four slashes of ch.48 (later 47) in Ws.1528–31 p.103). They are generally distinguishable from Dickens’s horizontal underlines, although similarity can sometimes leads to misreading, e.g. the slash before “Preparation for Cousin Feenix” (Ws.1017 p.83) or ambiguity, e.g. the slash below “Good” (Ws.1125 p.87). In the case of the slash at the start of entry (12) on the left-hand side of Ws.19&20, where he has no room to shape the slash in the usual way, Dickens takes care to separate it slightly from the continuous single line that follows (see Ws.19&2012 p.119). We can assume from the special attention he gives to distinguishing the slash from its surroundings that it is sign of some significance.
The transcription of the idiosyncratic slash shows its position and imitates very approximately its length, slope and density, but not its curved contour.
Accidental marks
There are occasional marks throughout the worksheets that are moving reminders of a writer at work. For example, at the start of Ws.3 p.46, they seem to show Dickens tapping beneath “Mems” on the top left-hand half as he reflects on the early narrative, perhaps before he devised the worksheet format. There are also various ‘transfer’ errors, for example when, having almost finished a worksheet, he puts extra pressure on the second ‘d’ of ‘odd’ leaving two small transferred marks beneath (Ws.107 p.83), or having finished updating the List for No.15, he appears to repeat the last double underline beneath “Florence” (see bottom of p.178). Such errors occur when Dickens transfers ink unintentionally. Some surface, acting like blotting paper, has taken up ink from his letters or lines and left marks elsewhere that faintly resemble them.34 One writing accident—a smudge—occurs with special significance in ch.17 (see ‘Title and summary of ch.17 (later 18)’ in the commentary on Ws.6, p.65).
Comparison with other transcriptions
The general aim is to improve on the transcriptions currently available. Stone summed up the situation thus : ‘[transcriptions] have been sadly deficient, some containing hundreds of errors, and all suffering from an inability to deal satisfactorily with the problems of format and with the idiosyncrasies of Dickens’ annotation’ (Stone, p.xxxi).35
The release of photographic facsimiles of the extant working notes for all the novels with their accompanying transcriptions in Stone’s edition was a notable advance in the history and treatment of the notes. However, Stone’s generously sized and beautifully produced book has limitations—apart from its cost—due to the technology that was available at the time. The facsimiles, photographed and printed in black and white, distort the appearance of the original in a number of ways. They render changes in colour, whether due to corrosion or to the various blue inks, as a change of tone, i.e. as alterations in the gradation of black to grey. Readers of the facsimiles (and of the transcriptions) are therefore unable to discriminate consistently between the effect of density, corrosion and colour, distinctions that, crucial to the close analysis of Dickens’s hand, make a significant contribution to the transcriptions and commentaries of this edition. Nevertheless, although developments in communication and in printing have bettered his facsimiles, Stone’s introductions to the preparation and composition of the working notes for each of Dickens’s novels are still among the most readable and well informed.
Stone tries to deal with the absence of colour by including a coloured frontispiece of the worksheet for No.12 in Dombey and Son and describing in detail all the coloured ink changes, as he sees them, in his introduction to each novel. In the section on Dombey and Son, however, the prose account is a poor substitute for the visual effect (Stone, pp.51–52). Arguments based on ink change—for example about the relation of Ws.7, Ws.9 or Ws.12 to the composition of their respective instalments—are very difficult to disentangle without a visual display. Moreover, although he recognises that the discoloration of Dickens’s black ink is caused by oxidation (and consequently related to density), he later apparently underestimates the affect that oxidation has, when he writes “In his middle works [Dombey and Son to Little Dorrit], Dickens employed both brown and blue ink” (Stone, p.xvii). Albeit often difficult to interpret and display, most worksheets for Dombey and Son are affected in some way by oxidation of the varying iron gall constituent in black ink.
Stone rather unfairly berates earlier transcribers for their omissions, while in his own, by reducing all of Dickens’s letters to one unvarying font size throughout, he diminishes very obvious marked differences between groups of entries in the original. In his defence, he appeals to his facsimiles, a recourse not available to those earlier transcribers, who were in any case unable to show them, because of copyright law.36
His edition has other lesser flaws. It is not quite true to describe the paper of all the working notes as ‘blue-grey laid paper’. As he notes later, the paper for Ws.5a is taken from Dickens’s store of smoother ‘woven’ paper that he also used for the manuscript, a sign of the importance he assigned to that attachment (Stone, p.67). Dickens also used the better quality paper for the “List of Chapter Headings”. The latter goes unmentioned by Stone, perhaps because he mistakenly considered it a preparation for the contents page and as such not a part of the working notes. Yet Dickens obviously viewed the List as a necessary part of his monthly tasks, usually compiling it as he approached the end of the instalment in hand (see ‘Appendix C’ for a transcription of the List, its purpose and what it tells us of Dickens’s working methods).
With regard to transcriptions in general, Stone claims that facsimiles of the originals ‘convey nuances, emphases, spacings, afterthoughts, and immediacies which no transcription can capture’. He feels that the ‘expressive and meaningful […] variations in size, boldness, underlining, check marks, and so on [are] untranscribable’ (Stone, p.xxxi). A sense of the untranscribable qualities of the original is probably shared by many readers. It arises from the skill of the writer and the nature of his medium. Finding a steel nib “scratchy” and always preferring a quill, Dickens enjoys its speed, flexibility and expressiveness. With control over size, direction, length and density of stroke, he creates a great variety of contrasts, as you would expect from someone with his life experience and shorthand skills.37
The more widely available transcriptions of the working notes have some of the commonly found shortcomings touched on by Stone. Published first in ‘Appendix B’ of the authoritative Clarendon edition of the novel in 1974, then reproduced in the Oxford World’s Classics series from 1982 onwards, Horsman’s transcription is derived directly from the original manuscript. Given the limitations of the conventional printed page, it is very accurate as to words and punctuation. However, it provides a poor and occasionally misleading imitation of layout and of grouping. It standardises all letters to a single font size, the orientation of all entries to the horizontal, omits colour, corrosion and all unconventional marks other than underlines. His claim to ‘follow the order […] of the original’ (835929) must refer to physical appearance of entries; there are no indications of their order in time. [Editor’s note: (1) the first figure following the bracket refers to page number in the hardback Clarendon text of the novel, edited by Alan Horsman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974); (2) the second superscripted figure refers to the same text reissued as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback, edited by Alan Horsman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) as in ‘References’, p.7].
Verbal accuracy alone misrepresents Dickens’s notation. For him making notes is an ongoing and changing process, with regular movements between left and right halves of the sheet, between notes and manuscript, with many hesitations, additions, insertions, corrections, and alterations of pace. Perhaps because of the problems of printing an effective transcription, the publishers of Penguin English Library—the chief rival in the UK to the Oxford World’s Classics series—seems to hesitate over the value of publishing them at all. Their edition of Dombey and Son (2002) omits the ‘Number Plans’ whereas the parallel edition of Little Dorrit (2003) includes them.
The present transcription differs from previous attempts in a number of ways. As already mentioned, it avoids a misleadingly spaced separation of the number plan side from the chapter side, found for example throughout Paul Herring’s article, where one follows the other, to the confusion of this reader.38 Drawing each worksheet with approximately the same dimensions as the original is a visual reminder of close relation the two adjacent halves to each other. Furthermore, by grouping and positioning entries in a similar way to the original and by imitating the size, density, colour and corrosion of the hand, the transcription shows more clearly how entries relate to each other.39 It also represents all nonverbal marks, including those important idiosyncratic diagonal slashes that separate and unify entries or groups of entries, which are often either omitted in transcription or if retained, done in a way that fails to distinguish them clearly from other lines. A few of the random marks that Dickens makes on the page as he pauses for thought are also included—not just for the information they carry but because they are moving reminders of the author at work.
Finally, unlike the two principal editions of Horsman and Stone, this critical edition links transcription to a descriptive commentary. All entry groups in each transcription are numbered, enabling the two-page commentary to assemble an annotated order of entry, reconstructed here for the first time from all the evidence in each facsimile and elsewhere, and incorporating Dickens’s other monthly tasks that regularly interrupt the worksheet entries. The commentary lists the following in the order that Dickens appears to have made them: the six sorts of entries made in the worksheet—as described in ‘Grouping and function on the left-hand half’, p.28)—the composition of each chapter, the compilation of the “List of Chapter Headings” and the principal changes made to the various proofs.
‘Appendix C’ transcribes the “List of Chapter Headings”, ‘Appendix D’ brings together Dickens’s scattered chapter title revisions, and ‘Appendix E’ transcribes some of his false starts in the manuscript at chapter openings, and ‘Appendix F’ summarizes the use of blue inks—all shown here in detail for the first time.