United States -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
*1)* Editors of the 1985 revised edition substantially but silently
revised the original text. To be sure, the transcription of the
classical text into simplified Chinese, the new paragraphing, and the
addition of punctuation are not unique to this edition but are standard
practices in the reproduction of classical works in China. However, many
of the silent editorial changes are questionable, including the
substitution of "offensive" words (e.g. 夷 [barbarian] was changed to 洋
[foreign]); the replacement of variant characters; the “correction” of
“wrong” information; and, above all, the change of the author’s name
from 林綤㿝 (as printed in his original text) to 林鍼 without any
editorial note. This kind of editorial changes may prevent the reader
from appreciating the original publication’s historicity and nuances.
*2)* Besides the extant copy used by the editors of the 1985 revised
edition, there is actually another one housed in the New York Public
Library. Both are the traveler's original publications but
there are significant differences between them. The 1985 revised
edition's source, published in around 1867, has more front and end
matter supplements, penned by the author's friends and supporters: an
illustration, four pieces of complimentary remarks 題記, five forewords
序, twenty complimentary poems 題詩, and five postscripts 跋. By
contrast, this eBook’s source, published much earlier in about 1850,
does not have any illustrations, complimentary remarks or poems, and it
only has two forewords and two postscripts. In fact, one of the
forewords in this eBook’s source appears as a postscript in the 1985
revised edition’s counterpart. This may lead us to believe that the
original publication had more than one edition, each of which might have
different combinations of front and end matter supplements. This also
confirms that this eBook’s source predated the 1985 revised edition’s
counterpart since the latter includes supplements written and added
after the publication of the former.
*3)* Although the 1985 revised edition has marginal annotations, a name
index, and a glossary of proper noun translations to provide contextual
information, it lacks any references to American primary sources that
provide contemporary accounts of events related to the author’s
encounters in the United States. Without these American newspaper and
periodical reports, we would not even know that the author was called
"Lin King Chew" (and by other transliterated names) in the United
States; nor would we know the exact people and institutions his travel
book refers to—let alone the wider context of his travel experiences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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