John Shaw Neilson : the collected verse : a critical edition

The thesis examines approximately 491 items of correspondence from the author to various recipients and shows that published biographies and biographical comments are ill-judged and misleading and cloud criticism of the verse. Neilson's method of composition, the use of amanuenses, and the use of the exercise books in which drafts of most of his work occur are discussed, and the influence of editors on the poet and the texts is examined. The edition includes all Neilson's verse, published and unpublished. It aims to be textually inclusive and to show both the process of composition and the text as a historical product. A text is regarded as a different version if alterations in wording are made by the author, or at his behest, or are accepted by him in copy authorised by him and which he has seen or heard, unless these are part of the original impulse of composition. A distinction is made for practical purposes between discrete versions, which involve a significant shift in meaning or emphasis, and theoretic versions, which do not. Neilson's texts have been described as a 'bibliographic nightmare' and as a 'well-nigh insoluble textual problem'. The thesis clarifies the problems and demonstrates that these are capable of resolution, and does this in a manner which will provide a sound basis for informed criticism of the verse.