Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2020
Ernest Hemingway said it:—“A country, finally, erodes and the dust blows away, the people all die and none of them were of any importance permanently, except those who practised the arts. ... A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art endures forever.” But works of literature endure in printed texts that become cumulatively corrupt. The definitive editions of the Center for Editions of American Authors restore and preserve the purity of the author's work.
* This paper was delivered in an earlier form at the National Endowment for the Humanities press conference, 10 December 1970.
1 The CEAA is affiliated with the Modern Language Association of America and the American Literature Section of the MLA, and is supervised by an Executive Committee (James F. Beard, Clark Univ.; Norman S. Grabo, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Harrison Hayford, Northwestern Univ.; James B. Meriwether, Univ. of South Carolina; G. Thomas Tanselle, Univ. of Wisconsin; and Michael Millgate, Univ. of Toronto. Former members of the Executive Committee are: William M. Gibson, New York Univ. [Director]; Edwin Cady, Indiana Univ.; Gay Wilson Allen, New York Univ.; Henry Nash Smith, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Richard Beale Davis, Univ. of Tennessee; and Willard Thorp, Princeton Univ.) The headquarters of the Director, Matthew J. Bruccoli, are at the Univ. of South Carolina.
2 CEAA texts have been reprinted by the following publishers: Charles E. Merrill, Imprint Society, Norton, World, Bobbs-Merrill, Harper & Row, Viking, Penguin. Indiana Univ. Press, Northwestern Univ. Press-Newberry Library, and the Univ. of California Press have published their own paperbacks.
3 Associated editions are not eligible for NEH funding, but they meet CEAA standards and are vetted for the seal. Fourteen volumes of these Associated editions have been published or sealed to date: The Early Works of John Dewey—Southern Illinois Univ. Press (4 volumes); The Writings of Herman Melville—Northwestern Univ. Press-Newberry Library (Typee, Omoo, Mardi, White-Jacket, Redburn, Pierre); The Writings of William Gilmore Simms—Univ. of South Carolina Press (Voltmeier, Stories and Tales, Paddy McGatm and As Good As a Comedy); Mark Twain's Works—Univ. of Iowa-Univ. of California Press (Roughing It). The James Fenimore Cooper edition—State Univ. of New York Press, has recently started work.
4 CEAA Funded Volumes Published (March 1971)
Stephen Crane: Univ. Press of Virginia Bowery Tales
Tales of Whilomville
Tales of War
Tales of Adventure
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Harvard Univ. Press The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, Vols. i–Viii. Only Vols. vii and viii were published with the CEAA seal. The first six volumes were published before the seal was instituted.
Nathaniel Hawthorne: Ohio State Univ. Press The Scarlet Letter (retroactively sealed)
The House of the Seven Gables (retroactively sealed)
William Dean Howells: Indiana Univ. Press The Blithedale Romance and Fanshawe (retroactively sealed)
The Marble Faun
Our Old Home
Their Wedding Journey
Literary Friends and Acquaintance
The Altrurian Romances
The Son of Royal Langbrith
The Shadow of a Dream and An Imperative Duty
Washington Irving: Univ. of Wisconsin Press Journals and Notebooks, Vol. i
Journals and Notebooks, Vol. iii
Mahomet
Mark Twain: Univ. of California Press Satires and Burlesques (published before the CEAA seal was instituted)
Which Was the Dream and Other Symbolic Writings of the Later Years
Letters to His Publishers
Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers
Walt Whitman: New York Univ. Press Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts
Hannibal, Huck & Tom
Correspondence, 5 vols.
Early Poems and Fiction
Prose Works, 2 vols.
Leaves of Grass (Reader's Edition)
All volumes published or in progress before the CEAA seal was instituted.
5 CEAA Funded Volumes Sealed and in Press (March 1971)
Stephen Crane: Univ. Press of Virginia The O'Ruddy
Reports of War
William Dean Howells: Indiana Univ. Press The Rise of Silas Lapham
Indian Summer
The Kentons
A Chance Acquaintance
Years of My Youth
Washington Irving: Univ. of Wisconsin Press Oldstyle-Salmagundi
Henry David Thoreau: Princeton Univ. Press Walden
Maine Woods
Mark Twain Papers: Univ. of California Press Mark Twaitts Fables of Man