Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005881, Sat, 31 Mar 2001 16:07:26 -0800

Subject
Query: Best text of Pale Fire?
Date
Body
------------------
A quick check through "Pale Fire", Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1st 1962, 3rd
impression 1962, Corgi 1964, Penguin 1991, Everyman 1992 reveals that
note to
line 347 contains "harebreath escapes" and "confusely" in all five
editions.
"Finnigan's Wake" is silently corrected in the Penguin edition (but
not in
the Everyman) to Finnegans Wake (note to l.12). Note to l.172 in the
Penguin contains "Not having to read the required book"; where the "to"
has
intruded.

Charles

In a message dated 3/31/01 7:29:41 PM GMT Daylight Time, chtodel@gte.net
writes:

<< ------------------
>From Mary Bellino (iambe@javanet.com):

Can anyone tell me which of the editions of _Pale Fire_ is the most
reliable textually? To judge by the brevity of Brian Boyd's apparatus
to
the Library of America edition, it would seem that the original Putnam
edition wasn't particularly error-filled, but I'm wondering whether any
further collations have been done. In particular, there are two
misspellings on page 467 of the Library of America edition, "chtonic"
and "tryptich" (though the latter is spelled correctly on page 516, and
the former is spelled correctly in Boyd's own note) -- I'm not sure
whether these represent editorial decisions, genuine cruces, or mere
slips. If anyone has made a complete collation of one or more of the
editions with the ms (that is, VN's pencilled index cards at the
Library
of Congress), I would appreciate hearing about it. Also, what is the
relationship of the text of the Vintage paperback (which I haven't
seen)
to the earlier editions?

Many thanks,
Mary
>>