Section 4. Introduction to the worksheets

Introduction to the facsimiles

Since Dickens made his worksheets wider than they are long, all facsimiles are displayed in landscape rather than portrait mode, with the exception of the unique entry on ‘Worksheet for No.1 (verso)’ and its transcription.41 Consequently, apart from introductory notes on the worksheets and Ws.1 verso, all of the next section of facsimiles, transcriptions and commentary are printed or displayed in landscape mode.

Facsimile and transcription appear on opposite pages to enable the reader to compare the two without turning the page. Readers of the electronic version, depending on the e-reader’s system and software, may be able to view any part of any page with any other by opening a second identical file—offsetting, to some extent, the disadvantages of a continuous prose account.

All of the V&A’s images of the worksheets are high resolution (300 dpi), coloured and slightly reduced digital photographs of the original manuscript, made under controlled lighting conditions. Each version of this book contains copies of the V&A images, but the resolution of the copies varies with the different versions. For a description of the various versions of the book, see the end of the ‘Foreword’, p.5.

A few V&A images—four worksheets in all—are much more reduced. The original manuscript of each of the four worksheet has an additional leaf attached to it. When worksheet and attachment were photographed, they were shot within a frame of the same size and shape as a single worksheet, so that they were reduced by about twenty-five to fifty per cent (depending on the size of the attachment). This blurs the detail of those four images making them more difficult to read without magnification and, in the case of one worksheet, without reorientation. Magnification results in a proportionate reduction in resolution.

The editor’s solution to the problems of the V&A’s images of worksheets with attachments is to treat each of them in a slightly different way, in order to make them as readable as possible on the displayed and printed page, while keeping their proportion. The details of the adjustments are as follows:

• The facsimile of Ws.4 is shown with a part of its additional leaf (Ws.4a) visible beneath it, so that the reader can see where the attachment is positioned. The transcription and commentary of Ws.4 follows. After them, comes the facsimile of Ws.4a, with its transcription and commentary.
• The facsimile of Ws.5 is shown without the leaf (Ws.5a) that is wafered over its left-hand half. In its place—in the rectangle, where the leaf will later be positioned—is the introduction to Ws.5a. The transcription and commentary of Ws.5 follows with, on the next two pages, the facsimile of Ws.5a and its transcription and commentary.
• The facsimile of Ws.6 (recto) is shown with a part of its additional leaf Ws.6a (recto) showing beneath it, so that the reader can see where the attachment is positioned. The transcription and commentary of Ws.6 (recto) follows.
• As Ws.6 (verso) is blank, except for its attachment Ws.6a (verso), the facsimile of Ws.6 (verso) is not shown. Instead, the facsimiles of both Ws.6a (recto) and (verso), re-oriented and to scale, are re-entered on a single page, followed by their transcriptions and commentaries.
• The facsimile of Ws.19&20 is shown with a part of its additional leaf (Ws.19&20a) showing beneath it, so that the reader can see how the attachment is made using a slip of paper between the two leaves. The transcription and commentary of Ws.19&20 follows. After them, comes the facsimile of Ws.19&20a, with its transcription and commentary (including further commentary on some entries made in Ws.19&20).

For more information on the additional leaves, see: the ‘Materials of the working notes’ in ‘Section 1’ (p.12); the introduction to Ws.4a (p.51); the introduction to Ws.5a (p.57); the introduction to Ws.6a at the start of its commentary (p.68); and the introduction to Ws.19&20a (p.123).

Numbering the entries in the transcriptions

Groups are numbered continuously from the left-hand margin to the right-hand margin, in the order of their appearance on the page. Numbering observes the group divisions that Dickens provides by his slashes, and, where these are lacking, uses the evidence of hand, ink and layout to distinguish one group from another. During the commentary, each numbered group is at some point assigned to a subheading according to its function (defined below in ‘Dickens’s order of work’). Most of these numbered groups on the left-hand half will eventually find a place in the published text. In which case, for the sake of conciseness in the commentary, the group is followed by an arrow ‘→’ with a chapter number, indicating the chapter in which the content of the group first appears in the manuscript.

On the right-hand margin, each numbered group is displayed as follows:

• the part heading is numbered in red
• the chapter number headings are numbered in red and underlined
• the chapter titles are numbered in black and underlined
• the chapter description is numbered in black.

The distinctive slash is at first is confined to the occasional single chapter description: in Ws.410–12 for ch.11, in Ws.623–25 for ch.19, and in Ws.97–10 for ch.26. From then on, the slash is consistently used throughout, except for a few shorter chapter descriptions. Where Dickens relies solely on dashes and stops to organise entries, as sometimes happens in shorter final chapters, they are usually numbered as a single entry. Ws.7 is unique having no slashes in either left- or right-hand pages; its groups are identified by colour, positioning and hand.

Reference by number in this way may make for slow reading. However, without it, comment would be sometimes ambiguous or laboured and often repetitive. A continuous and consistent numbering system, across left- and right-hand sides, has proved essential in order to give a full but readable account of both Dickens’s routines and the opportune to-ing and fro-ing typical of his working method.

Deletion in transcription

• deletion is shown by a horizontal midline, e.g. ‘Also Mis’ (Ws.116 p.39)
• subsequent short deletions are by arrows, e.g. ‘<and character>’
• subsequent long deletions are shown by a dotted underline, e.g. ‘is beheld(?) ˄seen(?) in the bosom of his family’ (Ws.118 p.39).
• conjectures of partly obscured deletions are followed by a query in brackets (see above)
• wholly obscured deletions are shown by a line of ‘x’s corresponding (roughly) to their length.

Dickens’s order of work as shown in the commentaries

The commentary begins by providing a short biographical headnote of Dickens’s life during the creation of the instalment, using the letters written at the time. From then on, it lists the order of his work, whether on the left-hand ‘LH’ of the worksheet, on the right-hand ‘RH’ of the worksheet, on the manuscript ‘MS’, in the ‘List’ of Chapter Headings , or on the ‘Proofs’.

For LH entries, the order of entry is determined by the grouping of the entries, their appearance on the page, their content and its relation to the final text. Each group has a function identified by a heading: whether it is a ‘preliminary’, a ‘plan’ for the number (or an ‘initial/additional/further plan’), an ‘outcome(s)’, a ‘memo’ or a ‘comment’. For more on the headings, see above ‘Grouping and function on the left-hand half’, p.28.

For RH entries, the commentary lays out Dickens’s work using the functions that correspond to his divisions, whether ‘preliminaries’ (part heading and chapter number headings), ‘chapter title/titling’, ‘changes to chapter number’, or ‘chapter description’.

For MS followed by a chapter number, the commentary gives a brief account of the chapter and its titling, to show how both relate to the worksheet.

For List followed by its identifying number (given in ‘Appendix C’), the commentary describes the entries that Dickens adds to his “List of Chapter Headings”. Changes in entry help to establish the relation between his entries in the List and his work on the instalment(s).

For Proofs, the commentary notes significant deletions or additions, particularly those made in reaction to the fixed length of the instalment. Other details are included to clarify the relation between the worksheets and the published text, where there are discrepancies between the two.

Abbreviations and other conventions in the commentaries

• ‘LH’ means the left-hand half of a worksheet
• ‘List’ refers to Dickens’s “List of Chapter Headings”, generally followed by entry number(s) in square brackets (given in ‘Appendix C’)
• ‘MS’ means the manuscript of the novel
• ‘RH’ means the right-hand half of a worksheet
• a bracketed number, either on its own or preceded by a worksheet number and subscripted, refers to a marginal number in a worksheet, i.e. either ‘Ws.7 ... entry (2)’ or ‘Ws.72’
• comments in red signal comments of special importance, the significance of which often goes beyond the worksheet in hand
• headings in blue signal that the associated entry or text is written in blue in the original
• the symbol ‘→’, preceded by a marginal number and followed by a chapter number, shows the chapter to which the marginal number relates, e.g. ‘(5)→ch.34’ means ‘entry (5), which relates to ch.34’
• a letter with a strike through, immediately followed by another letter, shows that the first has been overwritten by the second, e.g. ‘dD’ (Ws.5a4 p.60).