Talk:The Poems of William Dunbar

Supplement

@EncycloPetey: If you want to move the entire project and all its subpages to The Poems of William Dunbar (1835), I guess that's fine. You could just totally leave off the supplement or any mention of it.

If this is our page for all of Laing's The Poems of William Dunbar, then—wherever you put the external link—don't blank the additional and improved content. That isn't helping anyone and wp:reader goes double here. That said, I guess the Supplement is a little weird: It looks like the 1865 edition had two versions of where to put it. The 1865 edition itself was a two-volume set that included the supplement within Volume I. Its sections could be added to its list with a note that they were added in 1865. The separate third volume version was a 1865 addition specifically to the 1835 edition to complete the additional content Laing had added. It actually does form a very belated part of the 1835 edition listed here. — LlywelynII 15:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I am well aware what this page is for, as I am the person who set it up. You are mistaken about its function. Again, please do not insert external links into mainspace works. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:21, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Adding the supplement, which was published much later than the original 1834 edition, should definitely be discussed first.

Having said this, I am inclined to agree with its inclusion for the following reasons: 1) its title page explicitly states that it is a supplement to the 1st volume of the 1834 edition, 2) numbering its pages follows this volume, and 3) for example HathiTrust also lists it as a part of this edition. However, the previously linked scan looks like a later reprint, I suggest backing it by a scan of the 1865 print.

The external link should definitely not go into the ToC, a better solution is creating the index page and linking it from all W. Dunbar's author page and index pages of both volumes. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 07:47, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

That's not how we've handled later supplements elsewhere, such as the Dictionary of National Biography editions and supplements. If we are going to have multiple editions, which is what we'd be doing if we transcribed the 1865 edition, then all the editions should be listed on a versions page. The 1865 Supplement volume ought to be listed separately there so that people can find it and so that the publication history is not obscured. I anticipated this eventuality by including a Note on the 1834 edition that can be linked to the Supplements, if it is ever added. But right now, we're talking about a table of contents for a work that is not scan-backed. That's the sort of incomplete work we regularly delete. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:41, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the issue myself, so I could be way off base…

Was the 1865 publication only the supplemental volume, or was it published alongside reprinted vols. 1 and 2? A standalone publication would speak in favour of treating it as a very late third volume of the 1834 edition, bibliographically speaking.

On the other hand, calling it a supplemental volume, rather than volume 3, would suggest treating it as a separate publication. If published together with vols. 1+2 (either reprinted or updated) it would argue for the 1865 publication being a new edition. If published standalone it would argue for it being treated as a separate (but related) work, that was possibly later incorporated with the work that was published in an edition in 1834 (creating a new merged work). Xover (talk) 11:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

You can see the way it was marketed in the advertisement at the front of the supplement. The ad offers the 1834 edition with the 1865 supplement; or the 1865 supplement volume independently for sale. In both the ads and in the title pages, the publications are labelled Vol. I, Vol. II, Supplement. As Llywelyn has noted above, it appears that there was also an 1865 edition that inserted the supplementary material into a revised text of the 1834 edition. However, IA and Hathi do not seem to have scans of this edition, though they do have scans of several unrelated later publication series with the same title prepared by different editors. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The Library of Congress describes this is a two-volume set, "Supplemented by" followed by a complete description of the supplement with its own call number. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Note also that the Supplement is specifically a supplement to Volume I, and not a supplement to the complete set. Its pagination picks up where Volume I left off, and so it was meant to be inserted between volume I and volume II. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:30, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Honestly I think I can go either way on this issue. It sounds like the way they did the 1865 supplement was, bibliographically speaking, an attempt at revisionism which would make it difficult to integrate here. On the other hand, keeping it as a loose leaf off to the side when it is clearly intended as an integral part is pretty awkward. I think the safest and most conservative approach is probably to keep it as a separate but related work. That is, if there is a complete edition in 1865 that incorporates the material from this supplement in vol. 1 then we should host 1) the 1834 edition, 2) the 1865 edition, and 3) the 1865 supplement to the 1834 edition.

But since we don't even have vol. 1 of the 1834 edition proofread yet I guess we can ignore the issue until we have an actual proofread text to deal with. Xover (talk) 07:56, 29 July 2024 (UTC)