Given his propensity for publishing tales fairly soon after completion, James probably wrote Sir Edmund Orme in 1891, perhaps even on commission for Black and white’s Christmas number – ghost stories were a customary inclusion in such issues. However, the surviving notebook entry dates from some 12 years earlier, so we cannot be certain. It was reprinted with some changes in James’s next book collection of short stories and then some fifteen years later in a further revised version made for the New York edtiion, as detailed on my bibliography page. Full details of all subsequent publications known to me containing the tale can be found on the relevant page of my index to Henry James’s tales in collections.
The etext on this web-site is taken from the first U.K. book edition in The lesson of the master (1892), subject to changes required by the editor’s standard editorial method. Two emendations have been made in preparing this text from the source edition as detailed below. The first is suggested by careful application of the ‘rules’ governing punctuation, which require a stronger separation than a comma at this juncture, but it has been confirmed by reference to a (modern reprint of) the New York edition text, which has the semi-colon reading adopted here. The second alteration (removal of a paragraph indentation) is required to make sense of the dialogue; and is also confirmed by the later text (as reprinted).
|
location in 1892 Macmillan edition |
original text | correction |
|---|---|---|
| page 286, line 10 | impression, | impression; |
| page 294, line 20 | <indenting space>“It’s | “It’s |
Because of the production method the text has been proof-read twice, but only by this editor, so it is possible that an error has slipped through both times – offers of proofing assistance will be gratefully received by the editor.
this note
© 2002
part of an etext edition of
Sir Edmund Orme
on
the Ladder : a Henry James website