Friday Bookblogging: Proofreaders R Us Edition
Lori Smith, proprietor of the Jane Austen Quote of the Day blog and author of the upcoming book A Walk With Jane Austen, e-mailed us earlier this week with a question that surprised us not a little. She wanted to post the famous line from Pride and Prejudice, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?” on the quote blog, but when she checked her paperback Signet edition, it had “For what do we live, but to make sport of our neighbours…”
Lori checked the Molland’s e-text of P&P, which has the “for” quote. She then e-mailed the Editrix, perplexed as to which was correct. We were at le travail du journée, but keep paperback copies of several of the novels there; the P&P is a Signet edition, and darned if it didn’t say “of.” Remembering the quote as “for,” which a check of the e-book version we have with us at all times confirmed, and not having immediate recourse to our Chapmans, we telephoned a Janeite friend who was at home and asked her to consult her Oxford Illustrated edition. Chapman, naturally, has “for,” and a crisis of Western civilization was averted. Even without our recall of the line–one of our favorites in the book–the “of” version doesn’t even make sense. Let’s parse:
Part the first: “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours…”
Part the second: “…and laugh at them in our turn?”
“Make sport for our neighbours” means, of course, that the neighbours laugh at us. “Laugh at them” is self-explanatory; “in our turn” indicates an opposite or at least different action from the first part of the sentence. If the first part is changed to “Make sport of our neighbours,” meaning “laugh at the neighbours,” the meaning of the sentence becomes “For what do we live, but to laugh at our neighbours or laugh at our neighbours?” which, of course, makes no sense.
The Signet editions that had the error both were printed in the 1980s, and it is not clear if more recent editions have the word corrected. Does anyone have a recent printing they would be so kind as to check? It might be interesting to see if the usage has slipped into any other editions. We consulted the editions of P&P extant at AustenBlog World Headquarters; besides the Oxford Illustrated edition and the e-book version, we also have a 1907 Brock-illustrated Dent edition and one of the Everyman editions (also published by Dent and likely based on the same text) given away by The Daily Telegraph in a Becoming Jane-related promotion earlier this year: Both had “for.”
It would be very interesting indeed to know for how long the Signet editions contained such a mistake!
July 20th, 2007 at 4:12 am
I alsways had it with “of” in my mind, so I guess, that’s what I read. Since English isn’t my first language, I did not give too much thought to the matter, I confess.
*goes checking her P&Ps*
July 20th, 2007 at 4:40 am
Ok, I can not find one paperback version at the moment, but the paperback of the Dover Thrift edition (It came as a set of three, together with Persuasion and S&S), the Complete Illustrated Novels Vol. 1 (Chancellor Press) and one copy out of the Great Reads collection from Planet Three Publishing all have “for”.
I wonder why the “of” seems so familiar to me.
July 20th, 2007 at 5:32 am
*checks multiple copies on shelf* (hey - I collect ‘em so that I can give them away to the less fortunate!) My Scholastic Classics copy (c. 2000) says ‘for.’ The 2003 edition of the B&N Classics paperback has the same. However, both the 1981 Bantam Classic and 1996 Signet Classic have ‘of.’
As for hardcovers, the 1984 Reader’s Digest version has ‘for,’ and so does my beloved 1948 Modern Library’s “Complete Novels of Jane Austen.”
July 20th, 2007 at 11:25 am
My paperback published by Tom Doherty Associates in 1994 has “of”. It was the least expensive unabridged copy I found years ago after watching the 1940 P&P for the first time.
It also boasts the exciting tagline on the front cover, “Mom’s fishing for husbands–But the girls are hunting for love…”
July 20th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
All my copies of P&P have “for,” as well as my JA coffee mug. I think Mr Bennet was sporting enough, and fair-minded as well, to want the exchange to be a two-way affair.
July 20th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I’ve never posted a comment here before, but I had to chime in. : )
I never noticed the for/of thing, but here is one that has always bothered me. Some e-texts and e-books of P&P have the famous opening line as “in possession of a large fortune” instead of “good fortune.” There is one here: http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/romance/PrideandPrejudice/Chap1.html
I haven’t seen an actual book with “large” in it, though.
July 20th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Checked three copies of the Everyman Editions, the latest being 2003 with Thompson illustrations, plus a Norton Critical, and two coverless paparbacks. All have “for”.
And Kathleen, they all have “good”, I think.
July 20th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Welcome, Kathleen, on behalf of the staff (well, not really—I don’t speak for them), and myself (I don’t speak for the rest either). You must have been lurking here for a while, but I hope that you will now start participating.
“…large fortune” does appear all over the internet, although I cannot find anything on print having it that way. I blame it on some addlepated blogger on the internet originally writing it out that way, and then the trailing band of plagiarists following suit. Fortunately, it does not change the meaning of the sentence considerably, if at all. But the “for/of” issue does. Anyway, leave it to Janeites to nitpick every aspect of Austen’s work to no end.
July 20th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Norton critical edition has “for”.
July 20th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
My Penguin Classics has “for”. I might need a new copy, its falling apart!
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:11 am
I like to consider it examining her work closely with a mind devoted to detail, as opposed to nitpicking.
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:12 pm
The David Shepard annotated addition likewise has “for” in the quote as well.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:40 pm
I want to know what would have happened if the crisis of Western civilization had not been averted. Of what sport for our neighbors would that of be!
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:16 am
2001 Barnes and Noble Classics has “for”
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
To perceptive Nitpicking Janeite spy:
The problem with a mind devoted to detail, according to Jane, is that “to come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inablility of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person will always wish to avoid.”
If I have misquoted her, I hope it makes someone out there feel better.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:37 am
Chapman’s edition is generally reliable…but not always! He had a tendency to make changes when the text didn’t make sense to him.
It’s definitely ‘for’ though. That’s a bad slip.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:36 am
The Cambridge Edition of Pride and Prejudice also has “for.” I believe CE is as authoritative as you can get, don’t you agree?
My set is getting very close to being complete! And there went my lunch money for a good number of months. I only wish they would come out with Later Manuscripts already!