Posted by Wayne Hammond on March 10, 1999 at 19:56:43:
For my Ransome bibliography (I'm still working on it!):
1) I would be grateful if anyone who has a copy of any of the four printings of the Jonathan Cape edition of _Swallows and Amazons_ before September 1934 (that is, 1931, August 1932, December 1932, September 1933) would tell me which of these readings is present:
p. 26: (a) On the gaff there was a strop; (b) On the yard there was a strop
p. 34: (a) John hooked the gaff to the traveller; (b) John hooked the yard to the traveller
p. 209: (a) though the centre-board and the lowered sail; (b) though the centre-board case and the lowered sail
I'm trying to pin down when these (and other) revisions (b) entered the text. I know that they were made no later than the September 1934 printing.
2) I would like to determine when the dedication 'To the six for whom it was written . . .' was deleted from the Cape _Swallows and Amazons_. It was still present in the 1947 printing, and I'm told is not in the 1949 printing, but I've also heard that it was present in printings at least through 1967. If anyone has a copy of the Cape edition later than 1947, other than the 1997 printing (which I have), I would be interested to know the date of printing, and whether or not the dedication is included.
3) I'm also trying to determine when Ransome's 'Author's Note' ('I have often been asked how I came to write _Swallows and Amazons_. . . .') was first published. It's dated May 19th, 1958, and I've been assuming that it was introduced in the general Cape resetting of 1958, but a collector has just informed me that his copy of the 1967 printing does _not_ have the note. May I ask that anyone with a Cape printing from 1958 onwards, or with an American (Lippincott) printing from the same period, check for the presence or absence of this too?
Questions 2 and 3 have some bearing on how much Ransome tried to suppress all references to the Altounyans' role in the origin of _Swallows and Amazons_, and how much of this was actually done after his death.
Wayne Hammond
Wayne.G.Hammond@williams.edu