Belmour: A Modern Edition

Note on the Text

✦ li ✦ Note on the Text I have chosen the first 1801 London edition of Belmour for the text of this edition. There were four editions of this novel: a first London edition of 1801 by Joseph Johnson, a Dublin edition later that year, a French translation in 1804, and a republication of the London edition in 1827. I consulted the first-edition copy of Belmour at the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut, which is the copy-text for this edition. I have also consulted the copy at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The first edition of this novel and subsequent editions contain many internal inconsistencies in italics, paragraph breaks, punctuation, quotations marks, and spelling, including spelling of character names. To achieve internal consistency and to make the text more accessible to today’s reader, this edition has been edited to normalize usage in some cases. Some changes have been called out in the notes at the back of the book, while others have been made silently. Some unconventional, older, or British forms of punctuation, spelling, and word choice have been retained in order to capture the flavor of the original. For those interested in variant spellings in the nineteenthcentury novel, I have listed the following changes, though many more exist: “doctor Seward” (in the original 1801 edition , see volume 1, page 249) becomes “Dr. Seward”; “Dr. Stanmore” is used here though “Doctor Stanmore” (3:21), “Dr. Stanmore” (3:22) and “doctor Stanmore” (2:27) appear in the 1801 edition. Similarly, “Roman Catholic” is used rather than “Roman catholic” (2:285), “roman catholick” (2:298) and “Roman Catholic” family (3:8). Some honorifics have been altered: “lady Caroline Belmour” (2:263) becomes “Lady Caroline Belmour”; similarly, “lord Raymond” (3:65) becomes ✦ lii ✦ “Lord Raymond”; “Mrs. Rycott” (3:308) becomes “Mrs. Rycot.” Other minor alterations include “intreat” (2:250) changed to “entreat”; “imbitter” (2:268) to “embitter”; “anti-room” (3:45) to “anteroom”; “sympathize” (2:295) to “sympathise”; hotels (3:39) to hôtels; “Deane Abbey” (1:132) to “Dean Abbey”; “farwel ” (2:54) to “farewell”; “any thing” (1:255) to “anything.” Belmour appeared in three volumes and I have retained breaks in volumes since they mark dramatic changes in the narrative. Belmour’s father dies at the end of volume 1, and Belmour leaves Emily at Courtney’s house at the end of volume 2. I am pleased to acknowledge Nicole Kirkman, Rebecca Sailor, and Kassia Shaw for providing a digital edition of the novel in 1999. Alex Anderson served as my research assistant in 2008 and made many valuable improvements. Mary Pariscoe assisted with numerous French translations, as did Professor Pascale Anne-Brault of DePaul. My special thanks to Malcolm Kelsall and Jerome McGann for advice about Restoration drama and textual criticism. An anonymous reader for Northwestern University Press suggested the modernized format and also provided a number of helpful comments that improved the final version; Jenny Gavacs assisted, very helpfully, as developmental editor; Alma Reising was a superb copy editor; and Serena Brommel saw the book, masterfully, through all its stages of production at Northwestern. My special thanks to the University Research Council of DePaul University for financial support. The Lewis Walpole Library provided a month-long fellowship in 2009 that helped me complete this edition. My thanks to the director, Margaret Powell, for making this possible. This book is for Piya, with gratitude for her love and support. Overleaf: Anne Damer’s Belmour, courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. ...