Editing Polymaths: Erasmus to Russell. Papers given at the eighteenth annual Conference on Editorial Problems University of Toronto 5–6 November 1982 ed. by H.J. Jackson (review)

HUMANITIES 415 Lewis's definitive article, 'The Genesis of Strawberry Hill,' should be dated 1936, not 1934. It is not as definitive as Sabor thinks, since Lewis helped me to correct it in 1972 and the results have been incorporated, as the catalogue made clear, in the exhibition of 1980 and have seen publication also in Pevsner and Cherry, London 2: South (The Buildings of England), though this may have been too recent for inclusion (1983, reprinted 1984). Many other omissions canbe cited and Ihave not entered into detail out of pique at the neglect of my own writings, since I am in such splendid company, but to demonstrate how deep and wide is the flaw of this compilation in respectof a major aspect ofWalpolean commentary. And I have to point out that this could have been avoided by the compiler. All these works are listed and cross-referenced in the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut, upon the staff-members and the holdings of which this compilation principally depends, as Sabor acknowledges. He teaches moreover in Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, which is better supplied with professors of English art and architecture than any universityin the world. Itis to be hoped that he will consult his colleagues in preparing a revision of this very useful compilation. (MICHAEL MCCARTHY) H.J. Jackson, editor. Editing Polymaths: Erasmus to Russell. Papers given at the eighteenth annual Conference on Editorial Problems University of Toronto 5-6 November 1982 Committee for the Conference on Editorial Problems 1983. 176. $22.50 After ProfessorJackson's summarizing Introduction, this volume offers a general piece on 'Coleridge and the Self-unravelling Clue' from the late George Whalley, elegantly phrased and with enough wit to spice an introductory paper, if somewhat less given to practical detail than the succeeding papers. Itisconcerned mainlywith the problemsarisingin the annotation of Coleridge: principally the temptation to overflow beyond the decent limits of a footnote, merely because the richness of the text demands, or at least suggests, a corresponding fullness of explication. What can be extracted from a Coleridgean usage and what cannot be adequately stated in a Collected Coleridge note is well illustrated by Whalley's treatmentof'To&7re~pov(pp 35-8). Thereismore generalmatter, on genius and on Coleridge on learning, but the aims of the Conference seem better served by this and other drawings on Whalley's editorial experience. Blake T. Hanna on 'The Critical Edition of Diderot's Oeuvres completes' deals with the problems of the bulk and variety of Diderot's writings, of the need to establish authenticity .of text, and of widely scattered 416 LETTERS IN CANADA 1984 manuscript sources. When these are solved (as they now appear to be), the remaining one is the ordering of the works in the Hermann edition now in progress towards its goal of over thirty volumes; a compromise between a chronological and a thematic arrangement has been adopted. J.K. Sowards's 'On Editing Erasmus' deals primarily with Toronto's Collected Works, the massive seventy-five-volume project for making the Erasmian corpus available in English. The mere bulk of the undertaking and the consequent need for a large team of editors and translators seem to be the main problem. Editors are necessary to annotate the translations and, sometimes, to prepare such Latin texts as are not yet,available in the . standard Opera omnia now emerging from Amsterdam; translators are sometimes necessary because, as Sowards tactfully explains, not all good editors are good translators. Hence follows the need for what Sowards calls'people management [of] more than a hundred scholars from all over the world.' The rigour of the processes involved in the selection of scholars and in the checking of their labours in one or other field bodes well for the quality of this impressive work. Kenneth Blackwell's paper, '''Perhaps you will think me fussy ... ": Three Myths in Editing Russell's Collected Papers,' is the only one in the collection that applies comparatively rigorous theorizing to the actual preparation of a text, as distinct from the more practical problems of finding and identifying sources, assembling and allotting tasks to editorial teams, achieving the most useful arrangement of texts, and the like...