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George Moore's Revisions of The Lake, The Wild Goose, and Esther Waters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Royal A. Gettmann
Royal A. Gettmann*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska
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Extract

My purpose in this study of George Moore's revisions is (1) to venture a few generalizations with respect to the dates, the number, and extent of the revisions and his motives in rewriting and (2) to compare closely the first and final texts of The Lake, The Wild Goose, and Esther Waters.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , June 1944 , pp. 540 - 555
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1944

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References

1 Old Gods Failing (London, 1939), p. 101.

2 A Portrait of George Moore in a Study of his Work (London, 1922), p. 95.

3 Epitaph on George Moore (New York, 1935), p. 27.

4 Op. cit., pp. 84, 101.

5 E. Batho-B. Dobrée, The Victorians and After (New York, 1938), p. 316.

6 Op. cit., p. 316.

7 Since I have not been able to see a copy of the 1899 edition, I cannot be sure that it was the first revision. But this special six-penny edition of 100,000 copies is probably the one referred to in undated letter quoted by Ernest Rhys in his reminiscences of the nineties. In the letter, which is addressed to Will Dircks, reader for Walter Scott, Moore defends his extensive and expensive alterations of Esther Waters. See Wales England Wed (London, 1940), p. 184. Moore's references to a six-penny edition in his preface to the Brentano Esther Waters also suggest that the 1899 issue was a revision.

8 It is only fair to add that the bibliographical matter in some volumes of the Ebury edition, The Confessions of a Young Man and The Untitled Field for example, is more complete and more precise.

9 Op. cit., p. 100.

10 Ibid., p. 93.

11 Ibid., pp. 101–102.

12 This Book-Collecting Game (Boston, 1928), pp. 302–303.

13 Op. cit., p. 87. See also Batho and Dobrée, op. cit., p. 316.

14 Op. cit., p. 21.

15 Ibid., p. 26.

16 Ibid., pp. 11–12. Morgan here follows a suggestion offered by Moore himself in the preface to The Lake.

17 The Untilled Field (Ebury edition), p. v.

18 In the first edition the girl's name is Rose Leicester, her employer's Ralph Ellis.

19 Pp. 115–122. My references are to the first American edition, published by Appleton, February, 1906, copyright 1908. The first English edition was published November, 1905; a second and perhaps slightly revised edition appeared in 1906. The dates suggest that the American edition was printed from the English first, but I cannot be absolutely certain of this because I have not been able to see the English editions. My references to the revised text are to the Ebury edition.

20 Pp. 153–172.

21 It is significant that The Lake was dedicated to Dujardin, who first used and defined the term interior monologue.

22 (1905), pp. 64, 66, 78. (1921), pp. 47, 49, 57.

23 (1905), pp. 102, 178. (1921), pp. 70–71, 110.

24 (1905), p. 128. (1921), pp. 96–99.

25 John Freeman, op. cit., p. 169.

26 (1905), pp. 192–193. (1921), pp. 118–119. His letters make up not quite one-fifth of the 1905 version and slightly over one-sixth of the revised text.

27 Op. cit., p. 260.

28 Geraint Goodwin, Conversations with George Moore (New York, 1930), pp. 137–138.

29 Pp. 116, 172.

30 Pp. 121, 167–169.

31 Pp. 173–175.

32 P. 120. In her letters Rose emulates her employer by writing detailed descriptions of her travels, and Father Gogarty returns one letter so that she may have her “documents. ”This led to a discrepancy in the revised version which has been detected by E. A. Baker— namely, that Father Gogarty speaks of having returned a letter of which there is no previous mention. As a matter of fact it is mentioned (p. 180 of the original version). Baker charges the discrepancy to “Moore's habit of dictating and re-dictating from the manuscript, ”but it was simply an oversight in the revision. Baker also notes that although Father Gogarty alludes to an invitation to Rome, Rose had never invited him. But the invitation did appear in the original (p. 213). See E. A. Baker, The History of the English Novel, ix, 188.

33 (1905), pp. 153–178. (1921), p. 111.

34 To give statistics: Nora refers to Poole in only sixteen sentences, and these are matterof-fact statements about his manuscript and the printing of his book. There is not a trace of Rose's breathless interest in his Hamlet-like silence and his fastidious gray suits.

35 Batho and Dobrée, op. cit., p. 95.

36 Desmond Shawe-Taylor in Joseph Hone, The Life of George Moore, p. 471.

37 Originally published in an Erse translation in 1902, this book was revised by Moore for the first English edition. Some of the stories were also revised in 1914, 1926, and 1931.

38 The Untitled Field (Ebury edition), p. v.

39 Pp. 341–349. My references are to the first American edition, published by Lippincott, 1903. For the revised text I have used the Ebury edition.

40 (1903), p. 314.

41 (1903), pp. 313, 349–350.

42 (1903), pp. 345–348, 328–330.

43 (1926), p. 217.

44 (1903), pp. 294–295, 303.

45 (1903), pp. 318–324. (1926), pp. 206–209.

46 (1903), pp. 338–339.

47 (1903), p. 277. (1926), pp. 173–178.

48 (1903), pp. 275–276. (1926), pp. 185–187.

49 (1903), pp. 338, 300. (1926), pp. 214–215, 217.

50 First in 1899, if my conjecture in footnote 7 is correct; again for the Brentano edition (1917); and finally for the subscription edition (1920).

51 Prefaces of the Brentano and Ebury editions.

52 In collating the texts I have used the Ebury edition and the second edition, published May, 1894, three months after the first edition. I have not been able to use a first edition, but Miss Lucy Eugenia Osborne, Custodian of the Chapin Library, Williams College, has kindly made an extensive though not complete comparison of my second edition with a copy of the first. She reports that she did not find the slightest variation.

53 (1894), p. 40. (1920), p. 41.

54 (1894), p. 159. (1920), 163.

55 (1894), p. 116. (1920), p. 119.

56 (1894), p. 70. (1920), p. 71.

57 (1894), p. 11. (1920), p. 11.

58 (1894), p. 187.

59 (1894), p. 255.

60 (1894), p. 168.

61 (1894), p. 133.

62 (1894), p. 92.

63 (1894), pp. 166, 173.

64 It might be supposed that Moore would take advantage of the freedom of the 1920's to be more outspoken in his diction, but my collation yields only two examples: the blanks are filled out in the following expressions, “Go to ——- for all I care ”and “Creeping J——-”