First Advisor

Lorraine Mercer

Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English and University Honors

Department

English

Subjects

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889). Woman in white -- Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) -- Criticism and interpretation

DOI

10.15760/honors.58

Abstract

Wilkie Collins’s novel The Woman in White, first published in Charles Dickens’s journal All the Year Round, brings many issues to publishers who wish to create a new edition. As The Woman in White went through three editorial transitions during Collins’s life it is difficult for book publishers to decide whether to create a new eclectic text of the existing three original editions or to use one edition as the copy text. Beyond this, existing editions of this work, including the Barnes & Noble Classics edition and the Oxford World Classics editions, create problems in their paratext as by naming genre. By naming the genre as either a "mystery thriller" or a "sensation novel" on the back covers of these two editions readers and researchers alike already limit themselves in possible interpretations and analyses of the text. These limitations are expressed by demonstrating how The Woman in White can be interpreted as queer literature and analyzed under Queer Theory.

In attempts to solve these issues this essay proposes a new digital facsimile edition of the original serialized version while backing up proposals with Editorial Theory. With a digital facsimile edition page length for affordability are no long an issue and a reader can choose whether or not they want to interact with the paratext by clicking hyperlinks. This way both readers and researchers can experience The Woman in White in its original form but still gain outside knowledge and information from the hypertext paratext.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/12460

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