The Cambridge Illustrated History of France (review)

Reviews 229 Honigmann implicitly privileges that line. Finally, the authorial fair papers become somehow secondary, being relegated to the status of B and, furthermore, the whole line of B suggests an additional stage of removal from the Ur-text. Honigmann's argument does not convince m e that there ever was a single Ur-text or that F was derived at one remove from it through an authorial fair copy. The likelihood, I think, is that Shakespeare never prepared a fair copy at aU and that behind Q and F Ue two divergent sets of foul papers of equal authority, neither of which necessarily embodies Shakespeare's final intentions. To be fair to Honigmann, he talks of having arrived at a position very tike that of thirty years ago when I argued that Shakespeare sometimes wrote out two copies of a play, both of which he regarded as "finished", though not therefore beyond the reach of afterthoughts; that is, I believe that Q and F are examples of textual instability, not of largescale revision', (p. 21) Despite the limitations set by the search for an Ur-text, this volume directs us through the pathways of the most sophisticated and intricate textual editing of our time. Honigmann's editorial procedures in the area of practical decision-making are weU-founded and impeccable. Yet, in the end, he admits to 'a failure of nerve' and a possible future wish 'to re-edit Othello with Q as parent text' (p. 146). Surely he has fallen victim to the conflict between his new-fangled principles and his old-fashioned paradigm. Christopher Wortham Department of English University of Western AustraUa Jones, Colin, The Cambridge Illustrated History of France, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994; pp. 352; 335 illustrations, inc. colour plates, 22 maps; R.R.P. AUS$80.00 (cloth), AUS$39.95 (paper). As Colin Jones acknowledges in the Preface to his book, writing the entire history of France is a m a m m o t h task, fraught with difficulties 230 Reviews which often prevent the professional historian from even making the attempt. Jones acknowledges also that it necessarily involves a certain amount of selection and exclusion of material, what he calls, quoting Richard Cobb, 'a wide element of guesswork. It [writing history] is like attempting to sound the unsoundable, and to penetrate the secrets of the h u m a n heart'. Jones nonetheless approaches his task with what could only be described as the best intentions, and with a philosophy of inclusion, especially of the groups not often acknowledged in 'traditional History'. My aim has been to provide an accessible account that is more than a chronicle of the political history of the social and governmental elite; that gives economic, social and cultural history their due; that respects the regional as well as the national framework; and that gives full weight to questions of gender, class and race. On the basis of this statement, Jones's book is both a success and a failure. O n the success side, the book is indeed accessible. It is well written, easy and pleasant to read. The illustrative format of the book, which Jones sees as connected to its theoretical concerns, also adds to the pleasure of reading, in that it ensures 'due attention to questions of locality, class, gender and other principles of difference', and is usuaUy (if not always) a help in clarifying particular points of history. I enjoyed reading this book, I found it interesting. What I did not find however, was the inclusion and recognition of difference which I had been led, by both the Preface and the Introduction, to expect. In his Introduction, Jones is keen to set himself apart from the nineteenth-century tradition of unifying 'national' histories with their tendency to elide difference of all sorts in their portrayal of the 'true' France. Of particular concern is the centrality of Paris and the North to most studies of France, at the expense of the recognition of the changing landscape of France over time, and the various differences between regions which have developed outside the area of influence of what was to become the political centre of France...