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The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
During most of his life Samuel Butler carried a note-book in his pocket in which he wrote down thoughts that he wanted to preserve. After 1874, in an attempt to make his copious collection more useful and interesting, he began to revise the entries, transcribing them into a larger book, and keeping an index. For eighteen years he followed this system until his collection had grown so enormous that it was once more disorganized and hard to use; then, in 1891, he began a second thorough revision, re-editing all the notes, copying them neatly on good paper and, when enough pages had been filled, having them bound into large volumes provided with careful indexes. He used copying ink in this work or had his secretary Alfred use the typewriter, and as an insurance against total loss of the notes by fire he made a pressed copy which was kept in the rooms of his friend Henry Festing Jones. By the time of Butler's death in 1902 his notes had grown to fill six large volumes of about two hundred pages each. These volumes were bought by Mr. Carroll A. Wilson and are now in the possession of the Chapin Library at Williams College as part of the Butler collection.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1945
References
1 These facts are from Henry Festing Jones's “Preface to the First Edition,” Shrewsbury Edition of The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (London, Jonathan Cape, 1926), xx, xxxvii-xliii. All references to The Note-Books in this paper are to the standard Shrewsbury Edition. The Note-Books were first published by Fifield (London, 1912).
2 The lengths of the volumes are as follows: Vol. i, 230 pages of text and 22 pages of index; Vol. ii, 222 pages of text and 19 pages of index; Vol. iii, 238 pages of text and 10 pages of index; Vol. iv, 225 pages of text and 15 pages of index; Vol. v, 225 pages of text and 17 pages of index; Vol. vi, 109 pages of text, no index. In all there are 1249 pages of text, of which about 662 are typewritten and 587 in Butler's own hand. The original or “A” text is in the Chapin Library, and the “B” text, which was the copy kept in Jones's rooms, is in the British Museum. See Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill, “Distribution of Samuel Butler's Manuscripts,” The Times Literary Supplement, Sat. Nov. 23, 1935, p. 764.
3 The Note-Books, p. xxxvii.
4 Ibid., p. xxxviii.
5 The MS note-books, ii, v, June 28, 1898. The Note-Boohs, p. 216.
6 The Note-Boohs, p. xxxviii.
7 Ibid., p. xxxix.
8 Ibid., p. xl.
9 Ibid., p. xlii.
10 Ibid., p. xli.
11 Jonathan Cape (London, 1934).
12 The MS note-books, v, 62.
13 Ibid., iv, 29.
14 Ibid., iv, 117.
15 Ibid., v, 115.
16 Ibid., iii, 68.
17 Ibid., i, 3.
18 Ibid., ii, 99.
19 Ibid., i, 94.
20 Ibid., i, 112.
21 Ibid., i, 55.
22 Ibid., iv, 101.
23 Ibid., ii, 118.
24 Ibid., ii, 72.
25 Ibid., ii, 66.
26 Ibid., ii, 116.
27 Ibid., ii, 3.
28 Ibid., ii, 20.
29 Ibid., i, 67-69.
30 Ibid., ii, 62.
31 The Note-Books, 88.
32 Ibid., 93.
33 The MS note-books, i, 51-53.
34 Ibid., ii,15.
35 Ibid., ii, 177.
36 Ibid., i, 148.
37 The Note-Books, 377-381.
38 The MS note-books, iv, 1.
39 Ibid., ii, 132.
40 The Note-Books, 180-181.
41 Ibid., 330-332.
42 The MS note-books, ii, 205.
43 Ibid., ii, 41.
44 Ibid., v, 91.
45 Ibid., iii, 57.
46 The Note-Books, 349.
47 Ibid., 370-372.
48 The MS note-books, iv, 40-41.
49 Ibid., iv, 118.
50 Ibid., iv, 38.
51 Ibid., iv, 50.
52 The Note-Books, 99.
53 The MS note-books, iv, 138.
54 Ibid., iv, 137: December 7, 1891.
55 The Note-Books, 99-101.
56 The MS note-books, ii, 122.
57 The Note-Books, 109.
58 The MS note-books, iv, 182 bis.
59 The Note-Books, 111.
60 The MS note-books, iv, 199
61 The Note-Books, 137.
62 The MS note-books, iv, 151.
63 The Note-Books, 229.
64 The MS note-books, iv, 201.
65 The Note-Books, 229.
66 Ibid., 283-284.
67 The MS note-books, iv, 120.
68 The Note-Books, 319-320.
69 The MS note-books, ii, 127.
70 The Note-Books, 350.
71 The MS note-books, iv, 145.
72 Ibid., i, 161.
73 Shrewsbury Edition, 17, 341.
74 Some of the editions in which it is corrected are: E. P. Dutton, New York, 1916; Windsor Press edition, New York, 1935; Grosset and Dunlap, New York, no date; The Classics Club edition, New York, 1943. But in the E. P. Dutton editions for 1915 and 1910 it is not corrected, nor in the Jonathan Cape illustrated edition, New York, 1936.
75 Henry Festing Jones, Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (London: Macmillan, 1920), ii, 13.
76 The Note-Books, xl.
77 Ibid., xl.
78 The MS note-books, i, 1.
79 The Note-Books, 1.
80 The MS note-books, i, 112.
81 The Note-Books, 53.
82 The MS note-books, v, 62.
83 The Note-Books, 17.
84 The MS note-books, v, 39.
85 The Note-Books, 224.
86 Ibid., 370-372.
87 The MS note-books, iv, 40.
88 The Note-Books, 370.
89 Ibid., 166.
90 The MS note-books, iv, 147.
91 The Note-Books, 120.
92 The MS note-books, iv, 146.
93 Ibid., v, 62.
94 The Nate-Books, 17.
95 The MS note-books, ii, 21.
96 The Note-Books, 23.
97 The MS note-books, i, 82-83.
98 The Note-Books, 26-27.
99 The MS note-books, i, 48.
100 The Note-Books, 27.
101 The MS note-books, ii, 118.
102 The Note-Books, 55.
103 The MS note-books, ii, 40.
104 The Note-Books, 71.
105 The MS note-books, iii, 39.
106 The Note-Books, 102.
107 Ibid., 182.
108 The MS note-books, i, 71.
109 Ibid., ii, 49-50.
110 The Note-Books, 235-236.
111 The MS note-books, iii, 31 after the index.
112 Ibid., 29.
113 The Note-Books, 288.
114 The MS note-books, iii, 29 after the index.
115 The Note-Books, 288-289.
116 Op. cit., 11.
117 Ibid., 11.
118 Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon (London, 1920), Vols. i and iii.
119 The Nonesuch Press (London, 1932).