Dr. Katherine D. Harris
English 201 (Fall 2007)

Textual History Group Project:
Publication

 

From the letters, journals, biographies, textual notes (in scholarly editions) and other materials, you have gathered information about how Steinbeck composed the novel that you are examining. Conveniently, those are also the sources that should give you information about publication as well. Though I've explained what kinds of questions to ask about publication on the "Biographical Resources" page, I reproduce those questions here as well:

For publication, look for information on issues like the following:

  • when the text was finished,
  • who copied it (if not the author),
  • when the copy was sent to the publisher,
  • when the publisher sent it to the printer,
  • what the publisher thought of the work,
  • any response to those ideas that the writer had,
  • when the initial advertisements were placed in the periodical press,
  • when the text was expected to be released to the public,
  • when it was actually released (if there is a discrepancy) and why,
  • how many copies were printed,
  • how quickly they sold
  • how many editions the text went through in the first year, the first five years, etc.,

In a larger study (NOT FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT!), you'd want to go to contemporary magazines to see if you can find out how the publisher was advertising the poem prior to its publication. You'd want to find out when those pre-publication ads first came out, what they said, how they were marketing the text to a set of readers. You'd want to know when readers expected for the book to be on sale and where they could buy it.  You'd want to watch the ads to see if the book was delayed in press or if it came out on the date previously announced. In a larger study those questions would be essential to tracing the publication history of your novel.

For our purposes, however, just rely on the information provided by sources from the Steinbeck Center to answer as many of those questions as possible for your reader. If you can find information about sales (in terms of how quickly the poem sold--or didn't), that would be good information in assessing how popular the novel was on its original publication. Remember just because contemporary reviewers like or dislike a poem, doesn't necessarily indicate that readers agreed with their opinions.

In thinking about publication, what other questions might be profitable to ask your sources?