Editorial note — ALONZO AND MELISSA, (continued 4)

Based on references to datable external events (shown here in boldface), the story covers at least ten years. The parts of the book that take place in Connecticut are filled with descriptions of changing seasons. Europe and the southern states have no climate.

two young gentlemen of Connecticut ... graduated at Yale College

Beauman ... came regularly once in two or three months

Beauman’s visits to Melissa became more frequent

[Beauman’s] visits became more and more frequent.

It was summer, and towards evening when [Alonzo] arrived.

To accommodate Beauman’s repeated visits, a full year would have to pass.

The troubles which gave rise to the disseveration of England from America had already commenced, which broke out the ensuing spring into actual hostilities, by the battle of Lexington, followed soon after by the battle of Bunker Hill.

The battles were in April and June of 1775; “the ensuing spring” would mean that the year is 1774.

Winter came on; it rapidly passed away. Spring advanced ...

1774 changes to 1775.

The spring opened ... the colonies, which had now been dissevered from the British empire, by the declaration of independence

This is the same spring as in the previous quotation, but if the Declaration of Independence (July 1776) is in the past, it would have to be the spring of 1777.

It was at the latter end of the month of May ...

May 1775 or 1777, depending on one’s chosen chronology.

The particulars of this action, in the early stage of the American war, are yet remembered by many.

The “action” may be a conflation of two different episodes involving the Trumbull, neither of them early in the war: the first was in June 1780, the second in late August 1781. The Trumbull was towed to New York, not to London.

... who died there about eighteen months ago ...

Alonzo took sail shortly after learning of Melissa’s death, so we are now in early 1783.

[Melissa’s gravestone] October 26, 1776 In the 18th year of her age.

Depending on the chronology chosen, Melissa’s reported death could have been in 1775, 1777 or 1781. Her 18th year is properly the year leading up to her 18th birthday, but may mean that she was 18 years old.

... to be opened that night only, with the tragedy of Gustavus.

Gustavus was written by Henry Brooke in 1739 and immediately banned. Its American premiere was in Baltimore on 14 June 1782.

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In the 1851 text, quotations are shown either as inset verse or in quotation marks. In the 1804 original, some were printed in italics; in some of these, the italics were lost in later editions. Only a few quotations have been identified. Some of the others may be paraphrases.

Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles), 1731-1802, “The Temple of Nature, or, The Origin of Society”.

Timothy Dwight (president of Yale), 1752-1817, The Conquest of Canaan. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature says that the poem was “written by the time he was twenty-two, but published when he was thirty-three and should have known better.”

musing, moping melancholy.

Arthur Murphy, The Upholsterer or What News (1758), I:i “musing, moping, melancholy lover”

The breeze’s rustling wing was in the tree

This unidentified line is also quoted in Mitchell’s Albert and Eliza.

the “stilly sound” of the low murmuring brook

Misprinted in 1851 as “slitty sound”. Probably John Home, Douglas (1756) IV:i.

“the confused noise of the warriors, and garments rolled in blood,”

The 1804 text has “warrior”. Isaiah 9:5 (King James): “For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood.”

until “the heavens were arrayed in blackness.”

Isaiah 50:3: “I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.”

he cast a “longing, lingering look”

Thomas Gray (1716-71) Elegy.

“Blue trembling billows, topp’d with foam,”

The 1804 and 1811 texts have the correct form “tumbling billows”. Anarchiad, a New England Poem (1786-87) with joint authors Joel Barlow (1754-1812), David Humphreys (1752-1818), John Trumbull (1750-1831) and Lemuel Hopkins (1750-1801).

“dingy scud”

Printed “dirgy scud” in all but the 1804 original. Possibly from Charles Dibdin (b. 1745), “Ev’ry Inch a Sailor”:

The wind blew hard, the sea ran high, The dingy scud drove ’cross the sky ...

... like Patience on a monument ...

Twelfth Night II:iv.

The “days of other years”

Possibly from “Ossian” (James MacPherson); the phrase is used often.

Here may the “widowed wild rose love to bloom!”

May be a paraphrase of another line in The Conquest of Canaan.

“Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy ....”

Identified in the text as Edward Young, Night Thoughts, 1745. The couplet on the title page is from the same source.

“To tie those bands which nought but death can sever.”

May be “bonds” as in 1804 text. The phrase “that naught but death can sever” occurs in Spenser, Amoretti VI (1595).

“white as the southern clouds”

The phrase occurs in a translation of Salomon Gessner, as well as in an 1817 text (Pennie, “The Royal Minstrel”). Both passages are descriptions of sheep.

“a good old age”

The phrase occurs at least four times in the King James Bible.

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Within the text, differences between the 1851 and other editions are marked typographically:

Changed words and phrases are underlined.

Missing words and longer passages are shown in lighter type. Most of these represent text lost after 1804 (newspaper serial) or 1811 (first book publication).

Words and phrases missing from other editions—generally 1870—are shown on a grey background.

The editions used for comparison were:

1804 Weekly installments in The Political Barometer, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. This version was only available in an online transcription. A number of questioned words were checked with the transcriber, Hugh MacDougall of the Cooper Society.

1811 Plattsburgh, N.Y. “Printed For The Proprietor.” The first of the pirated editions. Some copies have no author credit.

1851 Boston. “Printed for the Publishers.” Attached to the end, without page break, is a short narrative poem with prose introduction, “Henry and Julia, a tale of real life” (omitted from this e-text).

1864 Philadelphia, Lippincott. With two exceptions, this is a reprint of the 1851 edition, including obvious typographical errors and with identical punctuation. There is a new frontispiece (the 1851 edition had none). The “Henry and Julia” poem is omitted. Instead, the final page compresses the last two pages (one full page plus seven lines of text and a four-line footnote) of the 1851 edition into one, using a noticeably smaller font.

1870? New York, Leavitt & Allen. The date is hypothetical, based on librarian’s notation. The book is probably a reprint of the 1836 Boston edition, which has the same page count (significantly different from other known editions); 1836 is also a plausible date for the frontispiece.

In the 1804 and 1811 texts, dialogue is usually punctuated as

“To this place (said Melissa) have I taken....“

with some variation between brackets [ ] and parentheses ( ). In the 1870 text, dialogue has “modern” punctuation using single quotes:

‘To this place,’ said Melissa, ‘have I taken....’

The earlier versions are more likely to use “American” spellings such as “jail” (but “gaoler”) and “honor”; later editions (published in the U.S.) use “British” spellings such as “gaol” and “honour”. The older form “shew” appears only in the earliest editions.

The spelling “stupify” is used consistently, and “vallies” is almost universal. The spellings “discreet(ly)” and “discrete(ly)” seem to have been used inter­changeably. Names in “New” such as “New London” were generally hyphenated in 1804; later versions have fewer hyphens, but they never disappear altogether.

The ampersand & appears a few dozen times in the original (1804) version; in 1811 most were changed to “and”, and in later editions it survived only in the form “&c.”

The 1804 and 1811 texts use “consolate” for “console” almost everywhere, and the name is spelled Wyllys, changed in later editions to Wyllis. The 1811 text consistently uses the spelling “whipperwill”, and often uses “come” and “become” for “came” and “became”. The 1851 text often uses non-standard spellings such as “visiter”, “suiter”, “persuit”. The 1870 text consistently spells “lilly” with two l’s, and uses “set” for “sit”; it often inter­changes or omits “the/this/that” and similar.

With lingering gaze Edinian spring survey’d for Edenian

The panic and general bustle ... is yet well remembered by many “is” for “are”

to level on the property of the former common error or variant for “levy”

this measure, once adopted, her father must consent also sentence structure is the same in all editions

constructed of several tier of hewed timbers “tier” used as a plural

he should conduct in a very different manner sentence structure is the same in all editions

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This is not an exhaustive list. Like the body text, it generally omits typo­graphical errors and non-significant variations in punctuation and spelling. In addition, the table omits some types of changes noted in the body text:

parallel forms such as “though/although”

abstract plurals such as “feeling/feelings”

added or omitted “and”

changes among “a”, “the”, “this/these”, “that/those”, “his/her” and similar

Spelling and punctuation have been regularized in some cases.