Part III: In which a hyphen is not a space

This is third in a series of six, and possibly seven, posts with the provisional title “Marking Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Typography, Race, and Textual Transmission.” See Part I: In which a space is not a space if you’d like to start at the beginning. This series includes much-revised versions of presentations at the Midwest MLA Conference (Minneapolis, 2008) and the Society for Textual Scholarship (New York, 2008). The revised version is intended as a draft for an article to be submitted to a journal. Comments are appreciated.

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After some thinking, I’ve decided to remove this post from my blog. What was intended as a spur to re-thinking and revision has not functioned as I had hoped. The post feels “published.” And I’m not revisiting it with the necessary seriousness and attention that is necessary to submit a journal article. I may reconsider yet again. But I’m going to try revising with no series of posts online to distract me.

Part II: In which a hyphen is not a hyphen

This is second in a series of six, and possibly seven, posts with the provisional title “Marking Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Typography, Race, and Textual Transmission.” See Part I: In which a space is not a space if you’d like to start at the beginning. This series includes much-revised versions of presentations at the Midwest MLA Conference (Minneapolis, 2008) and the Society for Textual Scholarship (New York, 2008). The revised version is intended as a draft for an article to be submitted to a journal. Comments are appreciated.

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In the two-volume Jewett edition, volume 1, page 106, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, slavecatcher Tom Loker asks Haley, the trader who purchased Uncle Tom, to provide what his partner Marks will call a retaining fee. Loker and Marks will pursue the child Harry–for Haley–and the mother Eliza for their own profit:

Note the hyphen at the end of the third line of the image. In an editorial sense, when this passage is transcribed, the hyphen is not a hyphen: it is not there. The hyphen that is not a hyphen is not there for many reasons–which this post will explore–but the real reason that the hyphen is not there, I propose, is that the hyphen represents a space that is not quite a space, in the sense that we cannot see it because of a paradigmatic blindness about typographical space. Not all scholars of literature and cultural studies are blind to typographical space in historical printing practices. A comment on Post I in this series, by William Tozier, shows that my original assumption about the blindness of other toilers in the field may have been rash. But I only recognized my own blindness to typographical space with the assistance of many works by Randall McLeod, most recently his “Gerald Hopkins and the Shapes of His Sonnets” (2004), and with the assistance of Peter Burnhill’s Type Spaces (London: Hyphen Press, 2003). But the degree to which my work departs from McLeod’s and Burnhill’s–and may be of more interest to scholars of American literature–concerns the intersection between type space, race, and stereotype during the textual transmission of Stowe’s work, a function of Modernization.

The hyphen could be “not there” in two senses. In the first sense, which is used by the Chicago Manual of Style for the preparation of manuscripts, it could be a soft hyphen, one “used merely to break a word at the end of a line.” The alternative, a hard or permanent hyphen, which “must remain no matter where the hyphenated word or term appears,” can be rejected as impossible, unless the intended word is “does-n’t [sic]” (87). A second sense in which the hyphen is “not there” is provided by the The Modern Language Association’s (MLA) Committee on Scholarly Editions (CSE). The MLA CSE addresses cases that are neither the Chicago Manual’s soft hyphens (“signs of syllabic division used to split a word in two for easier justification”) nor hard hyphens (“signs that a compound word is to be spelled with a hyphen”). Those which fit neither category are “ambiguous,” because it is “unclear whether the word is to be spelled with or without the hyphen” (CSE 36). In a scholarly edition, the editor uses judgment to decide how the word was “intended to be spelled.” After the matter is resolved, the editor must record the emendation in the apparatus. There are two basic choices: 1) “does-n’t [sic]” is an error in which “doesn’t” was intended, 2) Or “does-n’t [sic]” is an error in which “does n’t” was intended. For an authoritative judgment, a scholarly editor consults corollary evidence, which consists, first, of other instances of the same word in this edition, and which consists, second, of the same passage in other authoritative versions of the text.

In the two-volume Jewett edition, the contraction appears 12 more times, and the first use of the word (or words) is by Aunt Chloe:

That’s straightforward. There’s a space, a somewhat thin one, between the s and the n. Trust that if I were to photoquote (the term is Randall McLeod’s) “does n’t” 12 more times the other examples would also have a space, regardless of the speaker’s race, typically a thin one but a space nonetheless. Of course, in the troubling example at the end of the line on pg. 106, we have a hyphen at the end of the line. With confidence that there is usually a space between does and n’t, we will lean toward the hyphen as an error. But if the intent is to cite this passage or prepare an edition, a more conscientious attitude may be required, especially if the caution from MLA Style Manual (2008) echoes in our head: “Accuracy of quotations is extremely important. They must reproduce the original sources exactly” (122).

Stowe had some authority over at least four other versions of the text: the manuscript, the National Era serial version (1851-52), Jewett’s one-volume paperback Edition for the Million (1852/53), Jewett’s one-volume illustrated edition (1853), and Houghton-Osgood’s New Edition (1879). This passage is not present in the surviving manuscript pages. But it does appear in three near contemporary versions on which the author may have had an influence. I’ll photoquote other examples of “does-n’t [sic]” in chronological order of appearance: the serial, which appeared before the Jewett edition; those that followed shortly, the paperback and the illustrated edition; and, for good measure though it appears 27 years later, the last edition in Stowe’s lifetime on which she was intimately involved, the New Edition:

Note: Image size is not proportional. Also, the 3rd image is from the Google facsimile of the Sampson Low edition, a printing that was prepared based on the Jewett illustrated edition plates. The fourth image is also a GoogleBooks microfilm facsimile. I will be scanning the texts for updates to this post.

If we reach a conclusion based on the predominant practice of Jewett’s two-volume edition, there should have been a space. But these examples are also typical of their respective publication form. The National Era practice for contractions was to have no space. But because we have three editions from Jewett, and I’ve checked multiple examples in all three texts, we can make a further surmise. The presence or absence of space in contractions is a matter of design. For the short paperback edition, a trim 166 pages, spaces are generally present in contractions, as they are in the two-volume edition. For the fat illustrated edition with 568 pages, in many copies gilt-edged, with ample margins and copious engravings, the design of typography included omitting spaces in contractions. If Jewett as a publisher had a practice–and I think we can reasonably infer that it did–the act of designing the edition included deciding whether contractions should have a space. The 1879 Houghton-Osgood may carry lesser authority for space in typography, but it at least seems true that a space was thought present, from which we can infer, provisionally, either that the Houghton-Osgood compositor followed the 1852 two-volume copy or followed the design, in which, again, the presence or absence of space in contractions was a matter of concern.

Unfortunately, neither multiple editions nor the publisher’s practice offers any clarity on our original question, the presence of that curious hyphen in “does-n’t [sic].” The paperback edition’s generous typographical space conflicts with its strict economy in other matters: cramped margins, no illustrations, cheap paper. And though the illustrated edition was lavished with larger type, the designer chose to close up the space in contractions. So a transcriber of this text, or an editor who prepares a new edition, must make a surmise about this curious example. This is my surmise. When the compositor for the two-volume Jewett edition decided to place the hyphen at the end of the line, he probably struggled against competing influences. His copy, probably Stowe’s manuscript but possibly a marked up printing of the National Era newspaper, lacked a space before the comma. But the compositor’s instinct to follow copy contrasted with the book’s design, which insisted that contractions have a thin space between the two halves of the contraction. At the end of this line, he compromised awkwardly between the two practices: he inserted a hyphen that stands for a thin space.

That is, in the case of “does-n’t [sic]” at line end, a particular case that finds theoretical justification in the works of Jerome McGann and D. F. McKenzie, the hyphen represents a space that is not quite a space. Why one generic space is not equivalent to another will be the subject of Part III in this series of this post. This surmise can only be supported if our concept of typographical space is both historically sensitive and theoretically sound. While I aim to provide such a background, I must address our own era of computer typesetting, in which we have we have become accustomed to flexible spacing, wherein space as definition of width or space as substitute for line end is a matter of bewildering possibilities. Part III in this series of posts, “In which a hyphen is not a space,” will explore subtle variations in typographical space, from the perspective both of historical printing practices (hand-set type) and digital reproduction (ASCII, TeX, and Unicode). And we’ll turn in Part IV of this series to Modernist attitudes toward typography.

See Part III: In which a hyphen is not a space.

Works Cited

Burnhill, Peter. Type Spaces. London: Hyphen Press, 2003. Print.

Committee on Scholarly Editions. “Guidelines for Editors of Scholarly Editions.” Electronic Textual Editing. Eds. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, et al. New York: Modern Language Association, 2006. Print.

McLeod, Randall. Voice, Text, Hypertext: Emerging Practices in Textual Studies Eds. Raimonda Modiano et al. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004, 177-297. Print.

Modern Language Association. MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 2008. Print.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life among the Lowly. 2 Vols. Boston: John P. Jewett, 1852. Internet Archive. Web.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life among the Lowly. National Era. 5 June 1851 — 1 April 1852. Ed. Wesley Raabe. Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. Web

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life among the Lowly. Illustrated. Boston: John P. Jewett, 1853. GoogleBooks. [published also by Sampson Low]. Web.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life among the Lowly. 1 Vol. Pbk. Boston: John P. Jewett, 1852-53. Print.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life among the Lowly. Boston: Houghton-Osgood, 1879. Web.

University of Chicago Press. The Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 87. Print.

Part I: In which a space is not a space

This is first in a series of six, and possibly seven, posts with the provisional title “Marking Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Typography, Race, and Textual Transmission.” This series includes much-revised versions of presentations at the Midwest MLA Conference (Minneapolis, 2008) and the Society for Textual Scholarship (New York, 2008).

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After some thinking, I’ve decided to remove this post from my blog. What was intended as a spur to re-thinking and revision has not functioned as I had hoped. The post feels “published.” And I’m not revisiting it with the necessary seriousness and attention that is necessary to submit a journal article. I may reconsider yet again. But I’m going to try revising with no series of posts online to distract me.

American Literature: The State Department History

The State Department has published a “Revised Edition” of “Outline of American Literature,” by Kathryn VanSpanckeren. In the section on the fiction of 1820-1860, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, and the Transcendentalists represent the first great literary generation [...].”

On Stowe, not one of the greats, the essay has inaccuracies and curious emphases. VanSpanckeren emphasizes Uncle Tom’s service to St. Clare and belittles sentimentality–”The most touching scenes show an agonized slave mother unable to help her screaming child and a father sold away from his family. These were crimes against the sanctity of domestic love.” The mother in the first case is presumably Cassy (Aunt Hagar and Lucy and Dinah are also torn away from children, though “screaming child” not part of those scenes) and the second Tom. The phrase “crimes against the sanctity” seems aimed to demean Stowe’s politics. UTC does not “represent” the first great “literary” generation because it appeals to emotion and an ideology which affirms reform that originates from religious conviction and domestic transformation. So why, exactly, should that disqualify the work from “greatness”?

A partial explanation of why one group of literary figures is “great,” and another is not, may reside in a comment on Michael Wigglesworth’s Day of Doom: “It is terrible poetry — but everybody loved it.” Now that sounds to me like a good reason to read it. We face one of the legacies of industrial book publication and Modernist suspicion of popularity: those works which are loved by the public, such as those written by Hawthorne’s “scribbling women,” must be terrible. Since popularity equals badness, the State Department survey does not seek to determine whether likes and dislikes from past moments might lead us to question whether our current definitions of artistic excellence reflect not timeless judgments but our historical context. Or maybe the strange citation that serves as judgment on Dickinson explains the ideology of literary appreciation from the State Department, from R. P. Blackmur, that her poetry “sometimes feels as if a cat came at us speaking English.’ ” As Stowe said of young George St. Clare, our literary critic is “dangerously witty.” Blackmur is clever, and one can pardon a slip–Homer nods and all–but a quip that seems at best obfuscatory highlights the contradictions in identifying “great” literature without investigating why some works are excluded from the concept of greatness. If a poem impersonates a cat speaking English, then it’s great?

While the essay acknowledges that works like Harriet Wilson’s have been “overlooked until recently,” it persists with generic categories of “great literature” and fails to inquire whether works characterized as outputs of particular identity formations–Stowe, Wilson, and Douglass are in category “Women Writers and Reformers”–might invite a reconsideration of the category of literary quality. The profession of American literary and cultural studies has moved to a study of a wide range of texts from authors formerly forgotten, dismissed because female, dismissed because popular, dismissed because regional, dismissed because ethnic. And such a range of interests befits a multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual society. Yes, the United States (and the land masses on which the political entity formed) is multilingual, and it always has been. See Marc Shell and Werner Sollors’ Multilingual Anthology of American Literature. In the State Department version of literary history, multiculturalism is a recent development, part of Contemporary American Literature.

Stowe is not alone among newly recognized writers to receive short shrift. When discussing realism, Twain is a writer in his own category. But I would think that the category of “Black Writers” deserves revision. Charles Waddell Chesnutt may be called black for the same reason that Barack Obama is called black. But like Obama he’s also white. To categorize Chesnutt as black says as much about America’s continuing legacy of racial concepts as it does about Chesnutt.

The essay is certainly serviceable as an introduction to American literature. But the scholarly canons of pre-20th-century literature have been re-shaped by the same trends that make 20th-century literature multicultural. The survey could be improved, both as a representative of the contemporary study of American literature and as a product of the State Department–whose purpose might be to foster dialogue with other nations–if the essay offered more attention to multicultural American literature and less emphasis on those works whose distinctive Americanness is taken as a mark of greatness. It may be that the works that represent vibrant multicultural traditions will be enduring as well.

And dear sub-sub aide to Madame Secretary, if by some freakish coincidence your department has become aware of this brief comment, this is not a guide for a thorough revision. Please appoint a committee with an advisory board of eminent scholars in American literature. Tell them to get right to work. In my dream-fantasy, the next mid-term election will turn on the State Department’s most recent revision of the history of American literature.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Revising Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Topsy in the Jewett Paperback

I am comparing multiple copies of five printings of Uncle Tom’s Cabin using collation and transcribing individual copies of the following texts: newspaper, manuscript fragments, two-volume Jewett edition, one-volume paperback Jewett “Edition for the Million” (1852/1853) the Jewett Illustrated Edition (1853), and the Houghton Osgood New Edition (1879). In the past few months I have transcribed four selected chapters from all three Jewett editions, and I have found a significant alteration to the Topsy character in the one-volume “Edition for the Million.”

I did not anticipate that Stowe had revised for this cheap edition–I did not anticipate that she had not either–but I am not aware that another scholar has noticed Stowe’s revision of the Edition for the Million. Because the edition was printed in double columns, in small type, without illustrations, and sold cheap (37 1/2 cents), it appealed to readers from a lower social class than would the two-volume leather-bound first book edition or the lavishly illustrated one-volume edition. The passage discussed below offers nearly indisputable proof that Stowe revised her work for the paperback edition, but whether she revised for considerations of audience, in the moment because she was an inveterate reviser of proof, or in response to certain criticism, I don’t know. I’ve queried a number of Stowe scholars, and they are not aware that the revision of this passage has been previously noted.

Topsy in chapter XX informs the other children that they are sinners but celebrates her special achievement: “I ’s the wickedest critter in the world…” In the paperback edition, this paragraph, which concludes “plumed herself on the distinction” is followed by a passage that, as far as I can presently determine, is unique to this edition.

  “But I ’s boun’ to go to heaven, for all that,
though,” she said, one day, after an exposé of this
kind.
  “Why, how ’s that, Tops?” said her master,
who had been listening, quite amused.
  “Why, Miss Feely ’s boun’ to go, any way; so
they ’ll have me thar. Laws! Miss Feely ’s so
curous they won’t none of ‘em know how to wait
on her.”
(pg. 96)

The passage does not appear on page 50 of the first Jewett edition (on Early American Fiction site).

Nor does it appear in the National Era version (see pg. 178, column A (top) in my dissertation edition).

Although I qualify my statement with “as far as I know,” I have checked—in addition to the National Era newspaper the two-volume first book edition—the illustrated edition and the Houghton Osgood New Edition. Not one of those editions has this passage, so I surmise for now that it is unique to the paperback Edition for the Million. (Note: I need to get hold of Opperman’s dissertation to check British editions). As for why no one has noticed, the paperback editions are relatively rare and a bit frustrating to locate given the variety of cataloging methods (post on identified copies coming soon). The passage is followed with Miss Ophelia’s effort to teach Topsy the catechism, which directly follows Topsy’s pluming of herself in the other versions. This alteration, to me, is stunning.

Since finding the alteration during the first week in November, I’ve been attempting to think about what it means in context. One thing it means is that in this edition Topsy first imagines a route to heaven through her service to Miss Ophelia. Topsy’s doctrine for salvation has taken its cue from Miss Ophelia’s emphasis on order and neatness, and Topsy assumes that her mistress’s obsessions must represent a path to heaven. Topsy reasons that Miss Ophelia’s eternal happiness must depends on service that respects the woman’s peculiarities, and Topsy believes confidently that only she can provide the requisite level of service. Indispensable service to a heaven-bound mistress is thus Topsy’s first plan for heaven. This plan is Topsy’s own invention, and in the paperback version it precedes Little Eva’s intercession. This step (in this paperback version only) precedes Topsy’s move toward Christian redemption on the basis of Eva’s unconditional love.

In this version of the text, Topsy is a reasoning being, whose interpretation of Christian doctrine is subversive and a biting critique of Miss Ophelia’s faults. The passage offers an alternate perspective on Topsy’s point of view, and her adoption of a Christian doctrine–that even the mass readers would imagine is theologically faulty–marks the failure of Miss Ophelia’s effort to teach Topsy the way that she should go.

This post is an effort to interpret the significance of what I believe is an authorially revised version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the paperback edition. I welcome feedback from anyone who would reject, question, or enrich my perspective on this alteration. Readers are also advised to consider Les Harrison’s comment below, which addresses Stowe’s response to Lyman Beecher’s religious doctrine.

UPDATE: After posting this, I thought in my mind that this surely does not end the story. So I decided to do a little follow-up. A version of the passage appears in Stowe’s dramatic adaptation for Mary Webb, The Christian Slave. Jake tells Topsy she’s bound to go to torment. Topsy insists that she’s bound to heaven, but Amanda joins in and seconds Jake’s assertion. Topsy’s responds:

Shall too! Miss Feely ’s bound to go thar, and they ‘ll have to let me come too; cors she ’s so curus they won’t nobody else know how to wait on her dar!

See Christian Slave, Act II, Scene VIII, on Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture at
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/uncletom/xianslav/utplhbsaII8t.html

Abraham Lincoln to Harriet Beecher Stowe: “The author of this great war”

In every article on, or edition of, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the writer is obligated to observe that Lincoln greeted Stowe in the White House as the “little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” The exact quote–and whether it was actually said–is in question, because the bon mots were published not during Stowe’s lifetime but after her death, by her biographers.

The earliest printed source for a similar version of the quote–“Is this the little woman who made the great war?”–appeared in theAtlantic Monthly (pg. 148) version of Annie Fields’s biography, entitled “Days with Mrs. Stowe” and published in August 1896, nearly contemporaneous with Stowe’s death on 1 July. When “Days with Mrs. Stowe” was republished in Authors and Friends (Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1896, see pg. 181 on GoogleBooks), the quote is altered slightly: rather than the woman “who made the great war” she is the woman “who made this great war.” In both texts Fields’s version is attributed to Lincoln thirdhand, to Stowe’s daughter’s memory of the quote being reported to her, though Fields does not state whether the daughter is Hattie or Eliza.

According to biographer Joan Hedrick, Stowe was accompanied on her 2 December 1862 visit to the White House by her sister Isabella Beecher Hooker and her daughter Hattie. Although Joan Hedrick does not report the famous quote in her biography–presumably it is not mentioned in Hattie’s contemporaneous letter to her twin sister Eliza or in Harriet’s letter to her husband Calvin–she emphasizes their reports on the joviality of the occasion. When back in their rooms, according to the daughter Hattie, they “perfectly screamed and held our sides while we relieved ourselves of the pent up laughter.” Stowe likewise reports to her husband a “really funny interview with the President” (Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life [New York, Oxford UP, 1994], pg. 305).

The second relatively early printed source with family connections is Charles Edward and Lyman Beecher Stowe’s 1911 biography, which credits Uncle Tom’s Cabin as the “book” in the form of the quote given first. See page 203 on Google Books. The quote is notably absent from the earliest attempt at an official autobiography, Charles Edward Stowe’s collaboration with his mother in Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe: Compiled from Her Life and Letters (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1889).

If a Stowe scholar has identified additional archival evidence for this quote from an earlier date, I’m not aware of the discovery. While Stowe scholars of the literary and cultural studies bent find the quote irresistible–if not unimpeachable–Lincoln scholars hesitate to affirm the veracity of this piece of Stowe family lore. For example, Don E. and Virginia Fehrenbacher do not include the quote in Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln (Stanford, 1996). See James M. McPherson’s Atlantic review, which addresses this quote’s absence from the Fehrenbachers’ work. But a possible instance of corroborating evidence has appeared in a 2005 auction catalog. The online listing offers an intriguing clue, an inscribed copy of Stowe’s Sunny Memories from Foreign Lands. The inscription, purportedly from Lincoln to Stowe, is as follows (to the best of my ability from the auction site image):

Mrs. Stowe,
The author of this great war,
A Lincoln
Nov. 19, 1863

See inscription for yourself. A web site for the Auction Gallery of Florence has an auction entry for the book. (You may need to try the link more than once. The liveauctioneers.com web site is erratic.)

The Lincoln Log offers additional connections between Stowe and Lincoln. On 26 May 1862 the Library of the Executive Mansion ordered two of Stowe’s books: Pearl of Orr’s Island and Agnes of Sorrento. Note: Log lists first title as Pearl of Ord Island. On 16 June 1862 Lincoln borrowed Stowe’s Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin from the Library of Congress. It is worthy of remark that Lincoln borrowed Stowe’s book a few months before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.

But despite at least some evidence that Lincoln read Stowe’s books, I’m skeptical that Lincoln would have presented a signed copy of Stowe’s book to her. That a person (even a president) presents a signed copy of an author’s book to the author seems odd. My reasons for skepticism that this book was signed by Lincoln are these:

• The auction specifically states that “There is presently no completed Authentication Report accompanying the handwriting represented in this Lot.” Given the fame of the two figures, one would think it would be worthwhile to the auction house to verify the handwriting, if it could. If it could not, then the merely vague connections among Stowe, Lincoln, and Gettysburg (implied but not authoritatively documented) are suggestive that the item could be of great value while leaving the onus of determining whether the connection is genuine on the buyer. Such a claim is in the interest of the seller whereas an attempt at definitive authentication carries with it both the possibility of significant reward or of significant disappointment to the seller.
• The date on the inscription is suspicious. According to Charles Edward’s biography (1889), the date of Stowe’s visit to Lincoln was near Thanksgiving 1862. Also see “How Mrs. Stowe Wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ ” McClure’s Magazine, 36 (1911) (on ProQuest). The date is important: Stowe visited after the first Emancipation Proclamation was signed in September 1862. If Lincoln inscribed this copy of Sunny Memories when Stowe visited at the White House, the date on the inscription would be expected to correspond, December 1862. Instead, the inscription date matches perfectly with another of the war’s most famous events, the Gettysburg Address, on 19 November 1863. Stowe’s son Frederick was wounded at Gettysburg, but the connection implied in this uncanny coincidence–Lincoln signed a copy of Stowe’s book on way to, at, or on way back from Gettysburg–seems to me too cute.

I posed a version of this query to SHARP-L mailing list (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing), and the consensus of those who responded was that it would be unlikely that a prominent person would sign an author’s book in dedication.

I tend to believe that Lincoln greeted Stowe in one version of those words, as the biographers later claimed. It is sufficiently playful to qualify as memorable verbal banter. But I am too skeptical to accept this book inscription as Lincoln’s, given the evidence so far.

In the initial draft of the post, I stated that I could not address whether the signature was genuine. I contacted Daniel Stowell of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln. He shares the opinion of John Lupton, an expert on Lincoln’s handwriting, that the “signature is deficient.” Professor Stowell also informs me that the practice of dating forged signatures to significant events in Lincoln’s life (in copies of books originally published during his lifetime) was common in the late part of the century, a “cottage industry.”

UPDATE: A correction. I added Annie Field’s 1896 version of quote. I corrected misprint on date of Charles Edward Stowe’s Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Copyright page has 1889, not 1899 as I mistakenly transcribed. For both of these corrections my thanks to the SHARP-L correspondent.

UPDATE: (12/2008) A second update and correction. Added Atlantic version of Field quote in `Days with Mrs. Stowe.” Added distinction between two alternate Fields versions (the/this). Cleaned up some of the awkward parenthetical phrases referring to responses from Stowell and SHARP-L correspondents. Added a bit from Hedrick biography about Stowe’s December 1862 White House visit.

UPDATE: (5/2009) A historian offers a much better documented reading on the historiography and contemporary importance of this quote, which he designates dismissively as belonging to the “strata of pseudo-historical flotsam that increasingly defines that which is considered ‘historical’ in the digital age.” That harsh dismissal of the digital age seems exaggerated. The particular bit of flotsam was long in currency before anyone fired up a browser. See http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/30.1/vollaro.html