Cherokee Sister: The Collected Writings of Catharine Brown, 1818-1823

Statement of Editorial Method

xi Statement of Editorial Method This edition attempts to balance readability with adherence to currently accepted editing practices.To this end, the following editorial principles have guided the preparation of the volume. Letters Brown’s letters survive in a variety of forms. Of the thirty-two letters in this volume, nineteen of the letters were included in Rufus Anderson ’s Memoir of Catharine Brown, a Christian Indian of the Cherokee Nation. Of those nineteen, three were also published in nineteenthcentury periodicals, three were published in Elias Cornelius’s The Little Osage Captive, and nine of them exist in manuscript today. Of the thirteen letters in this volume that were not included in Memoir, four have never been published before, and the remaining nine were published in nineteenth-century periodicals; none of these nine has been reprinted since their original periodical printings, and only one of the nine exists in manuscript today. Of the total of fourteen letters existing in manuscript, eleven are written in Catharine Brown’s hand; the others are handwritten copies of her letters. In this volume, the earliest version of each letter functions as the source text for the transcriptions provided.The following hierarchy was followed to determine the source: (1) manuscript in Brown’s hand; (2) manuscript copy by another hand; (2) periodical publication; (3) version in The Little Osage Captive; (4) version in Memoir. Letters that were printed in Memoir appear in Cherokee Sister twice, once in part 1 and once in part 2 in the reprinting of Memoir.The choice to duplicate their printing in the volume was made for several reasons. First, it is the editor’s contention that when Brown’s letters are read as letters and in relation to her other letters rather than in relation to xii Statement of Editorial Method Anderson’s framing and interpretation in Memoir, new interpretations may emerge. Printing all of Brown’s known letters together in a “collected letters”edition therefore enables readers to encounter her letters with a focus and concentration on her authorship and employment of epistolary conventions. Second, presenting the transcriptions based on the earliest remaining sources of Brown’s letters (part 1) in the same volume with the versions printed in Memoir (part 2) allows readers to make comparisons between the two.These comparisons can potentially be meaningful, especially between Brown’s handwritten letters and the edited, printed versions. See the introduction for further discussion of these points. All letters are introduced by a headnote providing information that includes the name and location of the recipient and a list of the source texts. If the letter exists in manuscript, the word manuscript is followed by the abbreviated archive name; if the letter was published in a periodical , the title and date of publication are provided; and if the letter was published in The Little Osage Captive or Memoir, the title is given. Editing of Manuscripts The manuscripts used in the preparation of this volume are held by Yale University Library, Chattanooga Public Library, Houghton Library, and the Congregational Library.That last collection of documents appears to consist of the specific source materials Rufus Anderson collected and used when preparing Memoir. The manuscripts of Brown’s letters and the manuscript fragment of her diary, which is a copy from the original prepared by the missionary Laura Potter after Brown’s death, are in generally good condition.There are few holes or tears, and illegibility tends to result from conditions described below. Brown’s handwriting shows marked improvement in fluidity during the period she was writing letters. When evidence exists of the passage of letters written in Brown’s hand through the mail (e.g., the recipient’s address, the return address, and the postage amount appearing in the area of the folded outer page functioning as an envelope ), the information is given in the first note for the letter. Words in brackets in the note help to clarify what information is present (e.g., xiii Statement of Editorial Method [return address:], [postage:], [address:]). When the manuscript does not provide such information or for letters that were copied in another’s hand, mailing information is not given. Manuscripts, whether in Brown’s hand or another’s, were edited with the goal of rendering transcriptions as close to the original as possible given the limitations of print to capture the idiosyncrasies of handwriting . Misspellings and irregular punctuation and capitalization are retained. Words...