Editing Historical Documents

Historical editors have long wanted a reliable handbook that would provide easy access to the innumerable issues and practices that they daily deal with in their profession. Editing Historical Documents provides a wonderfully diverse examples of current documentary practice with full citations to the sources used as examples. With an emphasis on the descriptive rather than the prescriptive, this guide shows the range of options available to editors as they make the choices that will affect their editions and determine the policies and styles for the best possible rendering of their documentary collections. The handbook couples a lively, clearly written narrative of theory and practice with a selection of concrete examples drawn from the wisdom of generations of historical editors. The handbook is logically arranged and is readily accessible to the novice as well as the experienced documentary editor. -- John P. Kaminski, Association for Documentary Editing