Billy Mills wrote:
<snip>
And the truth is, we'll never know how E.D. wanted her poems presented.
But none of this matters. All that matters is the work...
<snip>
Of course, *intention* is a fugitive concept. But this is really much too
glib. Many of ED's MSS survive as fair copies, a proportion of which were
made up into what Mrs Todd called fascicles and ED 'little books'.
Additionally, there are several hundred instances where poems were sent to
friends or to relatives. ED's reputation grew on the basis of mangled texts,
unsympathetically punctuated. But that isn't much of an argument against the
1955 Johnson edition. Or indeed the 1998 Franklin edition.
Copyright on those versions plausibly most consonant with ED's presumed
intentions is held by 'the President and fellows of Harvard College', not by
a Dickinson heir. That may be surquedry, prudential guardianship or the
merest accident of international copyright law. On that you must take your
pick.
And there is money involved.
Christopher Walker
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