originals and redactions Re: [Sca-cooks] "All the King's Cooks"

[Ron Carnegie]

jenne> I'm wondering why we seem to prefer books with the original source but
jenne> really lousy and misleading redactions to books with good redactions the
jenne> original sources are only cited, not reproduced. (I can provide
jenne> examples...)
jenne> 
jenne> As a librarian, it seems to me that a book that is inaccurate is much
jenne> worse than one that is accurate but only references rather than
jenne> reproducing the originals...
jenne> 

    As a historian I must immediately wonder, without the original
sources what makes you think the redactions ARE accurate?  Personally I
don't use redactions at all.  I don't use printed ones, nor do I create
my own, I just follow the receipt.

Ranald de Balinhard

-- 
Ron Carnegie <r.carnegie at verizon.net>
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	"The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that
	 once on this earth, on this familiar spot of ground walked
	 other men and women as actual as we are today, thinking
	 their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions but now
	 all gone, vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we 
	 ourselves shall be gone like ghosts at cockcrow."
				G.M. Trevelyan
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