[The Lake Dialect]

The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, holds as MS MA 903 a previously unnoticed manuscript of ‘The Lake Dialect: A Letter from Thomas De Quincey’, which was written in December 1856–January 1857, and appeared in Titan in 1857. For the article as published see Vol. 18, pp. 77–82. The manuscript consists of ten sheets of white paper, written in black ink; all leaves are written on recto only, apart from ff. 6 and 7, each of which carries on its verso the continuation of the final sentence from the recto. The manuscript runs from the opening of the article to ‘dispossesses it.’ (Vol. 18, p. 81, line 3). The published article follows the manuscript closely, apart from its title (the manuscript being headed simply ‘To the Editor of “Titan”.’) and the omission of one sentence with an appended footnote. The manuscript, which despite a few unimportant deletions is fairly neat and has no other significant variants from the published text, may have served as printer’s copy, though it bears no sign of compositors’ mark-up.