Alice Dudley
Pilgrim's Notes, comparison analysis
Preliminary analysis of the Alice Dudley notes, columns 1 and 5
Thellie Lovejoy
click to see parallel edition
The Alice Dudley notes are a very interesting collection of notes. They provide for us a good
study of the types of changes one typist would introduce into the notes in order to copy them in
the pre-photocopy days. None of the notes displayed here are of the original typing made by
Alice Dudley. If we had that we would call it the original or first generation. The five different
typings found in column three through five are all then at least second generation typings and
none of the five are typed from each other. Column one notes are, it appears, typed from the
column five notes. Therefore, column one notes can be called third generation notes and in this
case it appears are typed from column five.
It is an interesting study to compare the one typings with each other. Each of the five second
generation notes have individually deleted information in them that appear in at least two of the
other three columns. It is by studying what has been deleted in each of the five columns that we
can be certain none of the five has been typed from any one of the other three. In addition to
deleting, either intentionally and often unintentionally, the typist would occasionally alter or
even add words. What is "beyond" in three sets of notes could become "far beyond" in the fifth.
Or it can go the other way. You could have "far beyond" in three typings and "beyond" in the
fifth. "Retributive" in three of the typings is "retribution" in column five. They also changed
the length of the paragraphs from one typing to the next. As they were speeding along typing,
they would forget to break for a new paragraph, putting two paragraphs together. Or, perhaps,
they would add the last sentence of one paragraph of to the beginning of the next.
By tracking the various alterations and omissions, we can tell from what second generation
notes that our third generation notes have come.
Column number one, the third generation notes, had a typist who intentionally deleted all
references to person's names. Columns three through five have these names so none of the five
could have come from column one. But what column notes did number one come from?
- Column number one has no additional information in it that is not included in column
number five, but it does have information that is deleted individually in each of the other three
columns.
- Column number one, except in the instances where the typist has intentionally altered
sentences with names, has all of the remaining alterations that are found in the column five
notes. The strongest evidence is found in the sentence, "The coming calamity would be
retribution." In columns two, three, and four, this sentence is found as the last sentence of one
paragraph. With the word "retributive" instead. "The coming calamity would be retributive."
Both columns five and one have this sentence as the first sentence in the following paragraph
with the word "retribution" instead of "retributive".
Since the column five could not have come from column one because of the names being dropped
in column one and retained in five, and column one cannot come from any of the other three
columns as it has information in it that they individually do not have, it is found that column one
is third generation coming from the column five notes.
Comparison provided by Thellie Lovejoy.