Presenting Romantic Texts: Editorial Theory and Practice

Modern editorial thinking has been much influenced by the practice of editing Romantic texts. Having confronted the complex transmission histories of the poems of Byron, Keats and Shelley, and the 'multiple authorities' implicit in the production of many Romantic texts, editors such as Jerome McGann, Jack Stillinger and Donald Reiman started reconsidering the idea of 'final authorial intention' and/or the very idea of an 'edition' of a given work. Understanding the crucial theoretical issues of Romantic editing means being able to grasp not only the rationale behind current editions of the major writers of the Romantic era, but the very principles of modern textual criticism.