Introduction:Aphra Behn, Love-Letters (1684-87)

From Marteau

A Note on the Text

The present edition of Aphra Behn's Love-Letters follows the copy of Yale University's Beinecke Library (shelfmark Ij B395 684L). A scan of the three volumes is available on microfilm (Wing-number 82:10). The Marteau html-version offers:

• scans and transcripts of the individual title pages,
• the original prefaces (omitted in the uncommented Gutenberg-edition - which seems to be based on a scan of the Virago modern classic edition published in 1987),
• the original spelling and punctuation with all pecularities and signs of careless work – especially notable where similar sounding words offered alternative spellings,
• the original capitalisation with its indication of changing emphasis,
• the original paragraph formatting as far as html allowed a decent reproduction,
• (in order to allow quotations) page references to the copy texts of the first editions.

Obvious mistakes of the type setting like the occasional n for u have been corrected, yet square brackets indicate these emendations throughout. The original text is otherwise perfectly readable even with its tendency to give words in versions which simply sounded right.

The first volume did sometimes use horizontal rules to seperate passages from each other. The present edition uses these graphical elements throughout with an additional feature: Two horizontal rules open a new letter; one indicates that the next passage was to be read as a letter enclosed within the preceding letter. The design should answer the special problem of the html-edition which cannot produce a segmented text with pages to be turned over and with new events to happen on new pages.

For corrections and for explanations you would like to see inserted leave notes at the discussion page or contact olaf.simons@pierre-marteau.com.

Explanatory Notes

— appear as marginal notes in the frameset. The present edition is undeniably indebted to Janet Todd's edition published with extended commentary, footnotes and materials in 1993 and 1996 – though I was not sure whether the broad commenting on the historical background done in the footnotes should not rather be seen as one (put not the only) possible way to read the novel. The historical background would in that case be rather the object of an article to be offered with the books than material to be presented in explanatary notes – in notes designed to make clear who was who and what event the real event related here by Aphra Behn. The present edition is with the marginal notes it offers especially indebted to Anton Kirchhofer and John O'Neill who solved some of the factual questions readers might have with individuial words and phrases.