A Textual Error in The Spoils of Poynton

The Henry James Review FaU 1983 PMLA 69(1954):677-78. Higginson, T. W. Malbone. Boston: Lee & Sherard; New York: C. T. Dillingham, 1882. ------------. Cheerful Yesterdays. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1898. James, Alice. The Diary of Alice James. Ed. Leon Edel. London: Rupert HartDavis , 1965. Strong, George Templeton. The Diary of George Templeton Strong. 4 vols. Ed. Allan Ne vins and Milton Halsey Thomas. New York: MacmiUan, 1952. A Textual Error in The Spoils of Poynton by Adeline R. Tinter In reading a reprint of The Spoils of Poynton made from the New York Edition revision, I noticed a sentence that made no sense, and, checking back to the New York Edition (volume X, p. 71), I found the same errors: "How could she pretend not to be affected with the very pendants of the lustres tinkling at her and with Mrs. Gereth, beside her, staring at her even as she herself stared at the cabinet and hunching up the back of Atlas under his globe?" The original 1897 English and American editions have the correct original sentence, which reads, "How could she pretend not to be affected , with the very pendants of the lustres tinkling at her, and with Mrs. Gereth beside her and staring at her even as she herself stared at the cabinet, hunching up a back like Atlas under his globe?" L my italics ] (The Spoüs of Poynton, Heinemann, 1897, p. 75). The mistake in the revised edition has been to eliminate the comma after "cabinet" and to substitute the word "and" for the comma, to change "a back" to "the back" and to change "like Atlas" to "of Atlas" [my italics]. This has made nonsense out of a reasonable sentence in which Mrs. Gereth is compared to Atlas with his terrible load, an "image" at which Fleda is "appaUed" (p. 75). Since most reprints of The Spoils of Poynton use the New York Edition revised version and since few readers can read the book in its original edition, you might caU your readers' attention to the original correct sentence. Even though I know of one reprint that uses the text of the first edition, published by New Directions, that also is out of print and difficult to find. Since it is apparent that the author himself nodded while reading proof, how can we blame our own attention for wandering now and then? Volume V 65 Number 1 ...