Second Trip to Byzantium

Melville’s Billy Budd edited by Barron Freeman. Harvard. $5.00.

The new text of Billy Budd reproduces every legible word in Melville’s difficult manuscript—that is, the text and footnotes taken together comprise everything that the editor was able to make out. The readings Mr. Freeman employs are often, though not, it seems to me, always, better than those selected by Raymond Weaver, and in some instances Mr. Freeman’s readings serve to correct his predecessor’s serious slips in transcription. Mr. Freeman is perhaps a little disingenuous in assuming that since the reader has the choices before him the editor need not take full responsibility for the use of one variant rather than another in the body of the text. Because Melville never put the manuscript in shape for the printer both editors have had to act as interpreters. I do not suggest that the work of interpretation be done again and again, but I do suggest that Mr. Freeman’s text is—Mr. Freeman’s text.