Critical Issues in Editing Exploration Texts: Papers Given at the Twenty-eighth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto 6–7 November 1992 ed. by Germaine Warkentin, and: Arctic Artist: The Journal and Paintings of George Back, Midshipman with Franklin, 1819–1822 ed. by C. Stuart Houston (review)

HUMANITIES 351 public. Further, it illustrates the openness of the Telegraph in moving the focus of this public discussion from 'leaders to readers." Robson has provided three appendices: an analysis of the correspondents with a chronological list of the letters, a series of detailed budgets drawn from other sources, and a comparison of these with those provided by the correspondents. As a mark of his usual intellectual generosity and loyalty to his discipline, he says that these are provided to facilitate further research. His own research has given his readers much to admire. In telling his story, he has found genuine human characters for us and has opened the life of the Victorian lower-middle class. Not only will we understand more clearly the society he portrays and the changing role of popular journalism in the period, but also we will have a much greater sense of the way in which Victorian fiction is involved with Victorian economic life. This book is not only for Victorianists, but for anyone who has had the slightest interest in the period. JOM Robson added this interesting and useful book to the legacy he left us. (MICHAEL LAINE) Germaine Warkentin, editor. Critical Issues in Editing Exploration Texts: Papers Given at the Twenty-eighth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto 6-7 November 1992 University of Toronto Press. 152, $40.00 C. Stuart Houston, editor; I.S. MacLaren, commentary. Arctic Artist: The Journal and Paintings ofGeorge Back, Midshipman with Franklin, 1819-1822 McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994.403. $45.00 In her introduction to Critical Issues in Edith:zg Exploration Texts, Germaine Warkentin writes that in the past thirty years the 'study of exploration history and its writings' has changed from discussing 'the genres of national epic and/or scientific reportage, to those of cultural analysis.' While the six essays included in this volume vary in their ability to provide informed cultural analysis, this collection of expanded conference papers offers a range of thoughtful insights into problems specific to editing exploration narratives. In recent years, works of exploration have received increased critical attention at the same time that English as a discipline has expanded its notion of what constitutes 'literature.' Yet most scholars do not deal with the fundamental issues of editing the diverse forms of field notes, draft manuscripts, journals, letters, compilations, translations, and fabrications. The essays in this volume explicate many of these narratives' textual problems, and point out the great deal of work that still needs to be done. All of the essays in this volume are worthwhile, depending on one's particular research interests; rather than describe each essay in detail, I will . 352 LETTERS IN CANADA 1995 discuss some of the more important themes that emerge from a selected number. In 'Tractable Texts: Modem Editing and the Columbian Writings,' David Henige, an elder-statesman in the area of editing and exploration, uses the complex history of Columbus's expeditions to discuss the difficulty of finding reliably edited texts. He begins by lamenting that 'Fresh from the Sturm und Drang that have marked the Quincentenary, it might seem inevitablethatdetailed knowledgeof,and interest in, Columbus's activities have existed uninterruptedly virtually since they occurred. Neither is the case - the former emphatically not.' Given the astonishing amount of historical and popular writing concerning Columbus and the - by now controversial nature of his project, it seems remarkable that there exists no reliable text of voyages. Even the famous 'Letter of Discovery' has been shown to be composed of 'parts of Columbus's own early report, perhaps some oral information, and -passages added by Spanish officials to make certain pofits known abroad.' Henige discusses five main volumes which claim to reproduce Columbus 's own narratives, and each has its own litany of problems. For many, their sources are not verifiable, like the Historie Del S.D. Cristoforo Colombo (1571), which was allegedly written by Columbus's younger son, Ferdinand , but published thirty-two years after his death, and 'published not in Spain but in Venice, and not in Spanish but in Italian.' Another volume is Historia de las lndias 'compiled' by Bartoleme de las Casas 'between 1527 and the early 1560s,' although...