Nightwood: The Original Version and Related DraftsThe version of Nightwood published in 1936 and revered ever since both as a classic modernist work and a groundbreaking lesbian novel differs in many respects from the book Djuna Barnes actually wrote. Unable to find a publisher for her earlier, more explicit versions, Barnes allowed her friend Emily Coleman and her editor T. S. Eliot to cut much material - ranging from a word to passages 3 pages long - to create a book "suitable" for publication. Barnes scholar Cheryl J. Plumb has studied all surviving versions of the work to re-create the novel Barnes originally intended. The Dalkey Archive edition not only restores to the main text the material Barnes reluctantly allowed to be cut - along with her preferred spelling and punctuation - but also reproduces in facsimile the 70 pages of discarded drafts that survive of earlier versions. The restored text and related drafts are accompanied by an introduction tracing the novel's composition and by a hundred pages of textual apparatus. Nightwood is the story of Robin Vote and those she destroys: her husband "Baron" Felix Volkbein and their child Guido, and the two women who love her, Nora Flood and Jenny Petherbridge. Commenting on them all is Doctor Matthew O'Connor, whose outlandish monologues elevate their romantic losses to the level of Elizabethan tragedy. Sixty years after its first publication Nightwood is firmly established as a twentieth-century classic, and this critical edition will allow readers and scholars to gain a greater understanding and appreciation of this unforgettable work. |
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Common terms and phrases
27 August accepted appears ND49 Barnes deleted Barnes inserted Barnes wrote Barnes's Baron Baronin beast beautiful began bird blue pencil called Catherine Chambéry Charles Henri Ford child church Coleman comma copy copy-text crying damned dark death Djuna Barnes doctor doll Eliot emendations Emily Holmes everything eyes Faber face fear Felix Frau Mann French FSC+ girl grandmother grinned Guido hand head heart Hildesheimer James Laughlin Jenny knees knew legs letter looking margin marked Matthew Matthew O'Connor mind misery monocle Morley mother never night Nightwood Nora Nora's O'Connor passage PFSC-B phrase punctuation Robin seemed semicolon sitting sleep smile someone standing stood story T. S. Eliot talk tears tell thing thought trouble TS-B TSC1 TSC2 TSC2 Barnes TSR-B turned typescript W. W. Greg walking wanted weeping woman word
References to this book
Tracing Arachne's Web: Myth and Feminist Fiction Kristin M. Mapel Bloomberg No preview available - 2001 |