BOOK ABRIDGMENT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND by Jordan Howell A dissertation ...

264 Pages·2017·1.03 MB·English

by  Jordan Howell

BOOK ABRIDGMENT
IN
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

by
Jordan Howell

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy in
English

Summer 2017

© 2017 Jordan Howell
All Rights Reserved
BOOK ABRIDGMENT
IN
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

by
Jordan Howell

Approved: ____________________________________________________________
John Ernest, Ph.D.
Chairperson of the Department of English

Approved: ____________________________________________________________
George Watson, Ph.D.
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

Approved: ____________________________________________________________
Ann L. Ardis, Ph.D.
Senior Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Signed: ___________________________________________________________
Matthew J. Kinservik, Ph.D.
Professor in charge of dissertation

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Signed: ___________________________________________________________
David A. Brewer, Ph.D.
Member of the dissertation committee

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Signed: ___________________________________________________________
Siobhan M. Carroll, Ph.D.
Member of the dissertation committee

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets
the academic and professional standard required by the University as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Signed: ___________________________________________________________
Edward J. Larkin, Ph.D.
Member of the dissertation committee
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank my advisor, Matthew J. Kinservik, for all of his guidance and
unwavering support throughout the duration of this project. Furthermore, a big thanks to
my committee, Siobhan Carroll, Edward Larkin, and David Brewer, for all of their
instructive feedback over many, many drafts. Thank you all for helping to bring order to
the chaos of my chapters, and for helping to complicate my thinking. I explored the ideas
in this dissertation at a number of academic conferences, travel for which was generously
funded by the Department of English. I would like to thank the Department of English for
funding my research through multiple, generous research fellowships, which not only
helped to fund travel but also provided me the time to finish this dissertation and publish
the research in scholarly journals. I would also like to thank the American Society of
Eighteenth-Century Studies for awarding me the Aubrey Williams Travel Grant, which
funded numerous research trips, as well as the Lewis Walpole Library and the Beineicke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library for awarding me a joint research fellowship that
allowed me to spend eight weeks in the archives. I would like to thank my friends for
their endless moral support, and Scratch Magoos for always having an open table for me
to write. Lastly, I thank my wife, Rebecca, and son, Leo, who never failed to pull me
away from the dissertation to enjoy the finer things in life.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... viii

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1

Defining Abridgment ...............................................................................................3
Why Abridgments Matter ........................................................................................8
Chapter Outline ......................................................................................................14

Chapter

1. WHAT IS ABRIDGMENT?.................................................................................. 18

1.1 Designing Abridgments .............................................................................20
1.2 Practices of Abridgment ............................................................................28

1.2.1 Editorial Abridgment......................................................................32
1.2.2 Summary Abridgment ....................................................................40
1.2.3 Transformative Abridgment ...........................................................47

1.3 Abridgments in the Print Marketplace .......................................................63
1.4 Legality of Abridgments ............................................................................72

2. ABRIDGMENT AND THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING ....................... 86

2.1 Abridgment and Early Modern Learning ...................................................86
2.2 Abridgment and the Empirical Sciences ....................................................95
2.3 Wynne’s Abridgement of Mr. Locke’s Essay Concerning Human
Understanding..........................................................................................107

2.3.1 Origins of Wynne’s Abridgment ..................................................108
2.3.2 Structure of Wynne’s Abridgment ...............................................117
2.3.3 Style and Rhetoric in Wynne’s Abridgment ................................124
2.3.4 Legacy of Wynne’s Abridgment ..................................................134

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3. ABRIDGMENTS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL ............. 138

3.1 A Hypothesis for Generic Conformity .....................................................141
3.2 Prose Fiction Abridgments before the Novel...........................................144
3.3 Old Narratives for New Readers ..............................................................153
3.4 The Novel Form in Abridgments of Robinson Crusoe ............................160
3.5 Abridgment and the Idea of the Novel .....................................................170
3.6 Novel Abridgments after Crusoe .............................................................178

4. REFORMING THE LONDON STAGE ............................................................. 187

4.1 Toward a Definition of Theatrical Abridgment .......................................187

4.1.1 Quantifying Theatrical Abridgment .............................................188
4.1.2 Defining Theatrical Abridgment ..................................................192

4.2 Dramatic Abridgment in the Restoration: The Case of Hamlet ...............199
4.2.1 Hamlet in Print and Performance: A Brief Textual History.........199
4.2.2 Abridging Hamlet and the Ephemerality of Performance ............205

4.3 Reforming the London Stage ...................................................................213

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 227

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 235

Primary Sources ...................................................................................................235
Secondary Sources ...............................................................................................242

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Abridgments in the English Short Title Catalogue ........................................... 85
Figure 2: Abridgments in the English Short Title Catalogue ........................................... 85
Figure 3: Comparison of Wynne's abridgment to Locke. ............................................... 119
Figure 4: Theatrical Adaptation in Langhans’ Promptbooks .......................................... 192
Figure 5: Comparison of Excisions. Reproduced from Spencer, “A Note on Cutting and
Slashing” (1936): 394 ...................................................................................... 210

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ABSTRACT

In the following dissertation, I examine the commercialization of abridgment and
posit that the ubiquity of abridged literature challenges long-held assumptions regarding
literary history, the history of reading, and the formation of the English literary canon.
It is unfortunate that so much modern scholarship tends to characterize book
abridgment as subordinate to “original” authorship, dismissing it as a parasitic literary
practice that feeds off legitimate literature. But the historical reality is that many of the
literary texts that we write about and teach to our students are not the texts average
English readers are likely to have encountered. Following the lapse of the Print Licensing
Act in 1695, commercial print production surged and people across England’s urban
centers were confronted with a deluge of print, much of which was relatively affordable,
such as broadsides, pamphlets, and daily gazettes. Books, however, remained expensive.
Abridgments performed a valuable socio-cultural function by expanding access to once-
expensive literature while also reducing the time investment to consume literature.
Abridgments expanded access geographically, as well, because provincial and colonial
American printers found a ready market for abridged texts. By 1800, roughly three times
as many abridgments of Robinson Crusoe had been printed than had editions of the
original, mostly by Scottish publishers operating out of Edinburgh and Glasgow. In North
America, the first unabridged edition of Robinson Crusoe was not printed until 1819,
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whereas abridgments had been printed regularly since the 1780s. Abridgments expanded
access intellectually by adapting style, form, and rhetoric for diverse audiences with
varying levels of reading proficiency. The Methodist luminary John Wesley found
Paradise Lost too esoteric for the average English reader, so he altered, abridged, and
annotated it without breaking Milton’s blank verse. Moreover, it was John Wynne’s
abridgment of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding that was widely read by
students at the universities, not Locke’s original. This story is repeated time and time
again, not only for novels but for historically significant works across all genres of
literature. “Book Abridgment in Eighteenth-Century England” contributes new
knowledge regarding the popularity of abridgment, but it also underscores the plasticity
of literature, the instability of textual history, and the artificiality of the literary canon.
In the first chapter, I identify methods of book abridgment that were prevalent prior
to 1800. Whereas some books were basically cut and pasted into smaller, shorter books
(effectively retaining the text from the original), others were paraphrased, excerpted into
compendiums, or abridged during the process of translation. Following an examination of
the methods of abridgment, I turn to printing records to assess the rise in book
abridgment from a relatively obscure practice during the sixteenth century to a ubiquitous
practice by the conclusion of the eighteenth century. The chapter concludes with an
overview of British copyright law pertaining to book abridgment so as to establish the
legality of book abridgment throughout the long eighteenth century.
The following three chapters will examine the ways in which book abridgment
evolved in print and literary culture. Contrary to modern scholarship that regards book
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abridgment as parasitic, the great intellectuals of the Scientific Revolution recognized
that abridgments played a significant role in the dissemination of knowledge, which was
integral to the advancement of learning. I examine John Wynne’s Abridgment of Mr.
Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1696), which was published in 33
editions (and 5 languages) prior to 1801. Wynne’s abridgment, though interesting in and
of itself, is representative of the broader debates concerning prose style and rhetorical
brevity following the founding of the Royal Society. Abridgers were well-situated to
condense ideas, cut superfluous or long-winded expressions and descriptions, and
establish a model of brevity that adapted old works brought closer to a model of
perfection that was judged not by flourishes and elegance of language, but by the ease of
learning and retention of knowledge.
Just as abridgment was flourishing within scientific circles, the practice emerged in
prose fiction. In this chapter, my aim is to answer a single question: to what extent do
abridgments figure into the origins of the English novel? I suggest that some abridgments
constitute a reaction to the models of narration, characterization, and storytelling found in
early novels, particularly those by Defoe and Swift. Abridgers had a tendency to curtail
in-depth representations of the human psyche, such as is found in the first-person
narrations of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722). Unlike nonfiction
abridgments, which sought to simplify and expedite instruction and the retention of
knowledge, abridgments of novels sought to expedite reading itself, condensing action so
as to increase the rate of action and thereby align the generic attributes of the emergent
novel tradition with run-of-the-mill formula fiction.
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