NOTE ON THE TEXT ISSUED in monthly numbers from 31 March 1836 to 30 October 1837 (one month omitted), bearing dates April-November. At first with 24 pages of text and four plates, but from No. III on with 32 pages of text and two plates, concluding with 'double number' XIX-XX, with 64 pages of text and 16 of prelims, with four plates. Unusually, some revisions and corrections were made in the course of reprinting early numbers, so that issues vary. In one volume (with list of errata), 17 November 1837. Appeared in the Cheap edition ( 1847), the Library edition ( 1858) and the Charles Dickens edition ( 1867). The 1847 edition shows numerous authorial revisions, mainly stylistic and expurgatory (see Clarendon edition, p. lxxix). The text of 1858 is hardly touched, but there is some further revision in 1867. All add fresh errors. Almost every modern edition follows 1867 and hence, in over 1,000 places, does not represent the original text of 1836-7. The present text is that of the Clarendon edition of 1986, based on 1837 with errata slip, and taking account of those fragments of manuscript which survive (mainly for chs. xxxvi-xxx-vii) in the British Library, Dickens House, New York Public Library, Rosenbach and Free Libraries in Philadelphia. -xvii- |