Jane Austen Used Pins to Edit Her Manuscripts: Earlier than the Phrase Processor & White-Out

Earlier than the phrase proces­sor, earlier than White-Out, earlier than Put up-It Notes, there have been straight pins. Or, a minimum of that’s what Jane Austen used to make edits in one in all her uncommon man­u­scripts. In 2011, Oxford’s Bodleian Library acquired the person­u­script of Austen’s aban­doned nov­el, The Wat­sons. In announc­ing the acqui­si­tion, the Bodleian wrote:

The Wat­sons is Jane Austen’s first extant draft of a nov­el in means of devel­op­ment and one of many ear­li­est examination­ples of an Eng­lish nov­el to sur­vive in its for­ma­tive state. Solely sev­en man­u­scripts of fic­tion by Austen are identified to sur­vive. The Wat­sons man­u­script is exten­sive­ly revised and cor­rect­ed via­out, with cross­ings out and inter­lin­ear addi­tions.

Janeausten.ac.uk (the net­web site the place Austen’s man­u­scripts have been dig­i­tized) takes a deep­er dive into the curi­ous qual­i­ty of The Wat­sons man­u­script, not­ing:

The person­u­script is writ­ten and cor­rect­ed via­out in brown iron-gall ink. The pages are crammed in a neat, even hand with indicators of con­cur­lease writ­ing, period­certain, and revi­sion, inter­rupt­ed by occa­sion­al pas­sages of heavy inter­lin­ear cor­rec­tion.… The person­u­script is with­out chap­ter divi­sions, although not with­out infor­mal divi­sion by wider spac­ing and dominated strains. The total pages sug­gest that Jane Austen didn’t antic­i­pate a professional­tract­ed means of redraft­ing. With no cal­cu­lat­ed clean areas and no obvi­ous approach of incor­po­rat­ing massive revi­sion or expan­sion she needed to discover oth­er strate­gies – the three patch­es, small items of paper, every of which was crammed shut­ly and neat­ly with the brand new mate­r­i­al, hooked up with straight pins to the pre­cise spot the place erased mate­r­i­al was to be cov­ered or the place an inser­tion was required to develop the textual content.

Accord­ing to Christo­pher Fletch­er, Preserve­er of Spe­cial Col­lec­tions on the Bodleian Library, this prick­ly technique of edit­ing was­n’t actual­ly new. Archivists on the library can hint pins getting used as edit­ing instruments again to 1617.

Yow will discover The Wat­sons on-line right here:

Be aware: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this submit appeared on our web site in August, 2014.

If you want to enroll in Open Tradition’s free e-mail newslet­ter, please discover it right here. It’s an effective way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in a single e-mail, every day.

If you want to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our web site. It’s onerous to rely 100% on advertisements, and your con­tri­bu­tions will assist us con­tin­ue professional­vid­ing the perfect free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to study­ers each­the place. You possibly can con­tribute via Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!