Textual Variations Between the Blackwood’s Serials and the Novels

Summary

(a) The Ayrshire Legatees

There are nearly 1,000 variations between the serial and the novel versions of The Ayrshire Legatees. Most concern punctuation. For these, the scant extant correspondence between Galt and Blackwood does not state whether Galt's revisions of the serial for the first and second book editions stipulated these changes, and there does not appear to be any discernible tendency to them. One might prefer one reading or another, but not upon any bibliographic evidence.

I have listed more substantive alterations below. These fall into four categories, and each concerns the removal of material present in the earlier version in Blackwood's Magazine. The serial version:

• • Frames the letters with a correspondent, Mr M‘Gruel, who collects the letters;

• • Occasionally begins with “Responsive Notices to Correspondents,” in which letters from readers to the magazine are discussed;

• • Incorporates explicit references to Blackwood's Magazine, often in footnotes, such as comments by Blackwood's putative editor Christopher North;

• • Contains a passage in which Andrew Pringle makes disparaging remarks on Alderman Waithman (see the entry for 76.40–1).

These were all excised in the initial transformation from serial to novel. The first three classes of textual variation are discussed in the Introduction to the present edition. The fourth change provides evidence of disagreement between Blackwood and Galt about including personal attacks on contemporaries such as the politician Robert Waithman. Galt's letters mention other passages added by Blackwood to which he registers objections but which he ultimately lets stand.

An added complication is that the second of the “Responsive Notices” exists in two slightly different versions in Blackwood's (see the entry for 81.1–2). Some copies contain the names “Mrs Fukite,” “the Miss Fukites,” “Dr Rowet,” and “Provost Haddock”; other copies read “Mrs Gorbals,” “the Miss Gorbals,” “Dr ——,” and “Bailie ——” respectively, in addition to minor changes in the placement of commas and hyphens. The second version has been used as the copy-text here.

The reading of the book editions is given first in bold font, by page and line number referring to the present text, followed by the reading of the serial text in Blackwood's Magazine. Additional editorial remarks and explanations are given in italics.

3.5 On New-year's day Doctor Pringle] Mr M‘Gruel, the surgeon, our correspondent in Kilwinning, has sent us several letters from the different members of Dr Pringle's family, during their present visit to London.