AevumWhat an annotated edition is (and what it is not)
Well-made footnotes help you read a classic without getting in the way. Badly made ones do the opposite. Here is how we think about them.
A public-domain classic is easy to find. You just have to look. The hard part is finding it well edited: with a checked text, explained spelling and, where needed, some help understanding what time has erased.
That is what notes are for. But “annotated edition” is an elastic phrase, and it is worth saying what we mean by it.
What a note should do
A good note explains what a reader today may not know: what a mule-drawn tram was, who the politician mentioned in passing was, where the line the character murmurs comes from, what a sentence in French in the middle of a dinner means. It is short, sits at the foot of the page and lets the reader return to the text without losing the thread.
What a note should not do
It does not interpret for the reader. A novel like Memorial de Aires lives on what the narrator leaves implicit. A note that explains the irony ruins the irony. When there are different interpretations of a passage, the note credits each reading to the person who made it and does not choose between them.
It does not assert what could not be checked. Every note in our editions rests on a source that can be verified. If we cannot confirm a fact, the passage goes without a note. We prefer a book with one note fewer to a book with a wrong note.
It does not rewrite the text. The author’s vocabulary and style are left as they were written. When we update spelling or correct an obvious transcription error, that is stated in the “Note on the text” at the end of the book.
Why at the foot of the page
Notes at the back of the book force the reader to stop, turn pages, find the number and come back. Many people give up by the third time. At the foot of the page, the note is one glance away, and whoever does not need it simply does not look.
How you can help us
If you find a note that is wrong, imprecise or could be better, write to us through the contact page. Every confirmed correction goes into the next printing.