II - Treatment of Texts

Summary

The present edition contains all the surviving writings of George Lauder, with the exception of his translation of Marie du Moulin's account of the death of her uncle Andre Rivet; the latter work may be consulted via EEBO. All Lauder's poems and correspondence are included, as are also a few poems by other writers but directly relating to Lauder.

With the exception of the poet's letters, none of his writing exists in holograph, and it cannot be assumed that any of the surviving textual witnesses either faithfully or consistently reproduces Lauder's spelling and punctuation. The print of Mars Belgicus exhibits manuscript corrections, and it is possible that these are from the hand of the poet himself. Lauder's work was essentially occasional in nature, and the poems, it would seem, were printed wherever circumstances dictated was most convenient, and by whichever printer was available. Lauder's poems were printed in at least three different countries, often by printers used to working in languages other than English, and all of whom would have their own individual practices and conventions. In the face of such variety, the present edition adopts a conservative approach to the editing of the various texts. Where any departure is made from those principles this is mentioned in the Commentary.

In the treatment of the texts, compromises have been struck between the extremes of fidelity to the copy-text and clarification for the benefit of the modern reader – albeit with a bias on the side of fidelity. In principle, those typographic features of Lauder's writings are respected which may be considered as possibly contributing something to the meaning of merely the words of the texts. For example, the capitalisation and italicisation found in Lauder's works – often in relation to significant, and often proper, nouns – is reproduced, as is the pyramid shape of poem 6.3. However, whereas the poem Evander was printed in italic, with roman for emphasis, this is here reversed, in order to harmonise with the other poems in the present edition. Nonetheless, the edition does not attempt the aim of being a (quasi-) facsimile, and the lay-out of the titles and texts of poems is editorial: in the age of photocopy and of widely accessible electronic facsimile databases, quasi-facsimile has become superfluous.