JOHN CLARE BY HIMSELF

Some previous editors have substituted standardized words such as 'shrill' and 'porch' for the dialect forms 'shill' and 'poach'. We do not intend to cramp Clare's writings into a conformity entirely foreign to them. All editors of Clare tread a fine line in such matters. We do not believe that we are justified in making verbs and subjects agree in number, or in removing double negatives when it is certain that such practices were part of Clare's speech and grammatical habits. The reader will soon find it easy to come to terms with Clare's language: again, the best test for the reader to adopt is to read a puzzling word aloud. We have included a glossary for. all difficult words just as Clare's first publisher, Taylor, did.

A space between square brackets in the text means that Clare has left a space in which he intended later to fill in a word or words but has failed to do so. Words or letters between square brackets are supplied by the editors and are not in the text. Clare may have omitted them inadvertently. In other cases, the paper has deteriorated since Clare wrote. In this text, intended for the general reader, we have not shown minor deletions and alterations but have mentioned those which seem to us to be of importance to the meaning or to illustrate Clare's intentions in some significant way.

No edition of Clare will ever be final, but a generation has passed since the publication of The Autobiographical Writings of John Clare. This volume is undoubtedly more accurate and we hope that it will replace that edition as a reference source. Here is the best we can now contrive; in another twenty years, if more autobiographical material comes to light, the work may have to be done again. But that is the nature of editorial work: it is never finished.

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