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"Compiling Sanditon"
Project Proposal
http://www.compilingsanditon.wordpress.com
I will be examining the manuscript (1817) and first printed edition (1925) of
Sanditon, and asking the following main question, along with certain sub-questions:
1. How can Sanditon continue to endure as an integral piece of Austen writing
both in manuscript and in print form for scholars and the general public alike?
a. Why was Sanditon published in print nearly 100 years after Austen
stopped writing it?
b. How does Sanditon differ across texts (manuscript and 1925), and from
Austens other print novels?
c. What treatment did Chapman give Sanditon in publication (transcription
of manuscript, physical book (bibliographic data), paratextual material)?
In order to explore these questions, I will transcribe selections of Sanditon from the
draft manuscript, link or use Scribd to show the digitized manuscript pages, and either
transcribe or scan the same selections from Chapmans first printed edition (1925). I am
choosing to transcribe Austens manuscript myself because I do not want the facsimile
transcription that the Jane Austen Fiction Manuscripts site provides with the digitized
draft manuscript, but I do want to faithfully represent her handwriting and what Austen
did at the draft stage want put forward as part of the work. Within my critical
introduction, I plan to outline the themes of Sanditon, explain how these themes differ
from her printed novels, and how modern the work feels. If possible, I would like to
discuss how Austen-Leigh introduced the work in his Jane Austen memoir of 1871, and

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how the work was received upon publication in 1925. I am interested in how it came to
be published, and would like to explore the publication history of the first edition, as
well as Chapmans background, in the latter half of my introduction. I believe this is a
work of Austens that is often overlooked by the general public (I was ignorant of it until
this year), and I would like to explore the possibility that it is largely contemporarily
unknown.
As I think about this fragment as something less popular than Austens printed
fictions, I will be using WordPress to build my site, with the idea that the site will be
public. I want to display Sanditon as an important and interesting addition to the
Austen reading list, with the idea of public accessibility both for scholarly research and
pleasure reading. I am choosing to represent both the manuscript and the first printed
edition to illustrate how the work was originally conceived as well as received by the
public. The similarities between the manuscript and the printed edition raise questions
about the publication of unfinished works of fiction. WordPress is an excellent online
platform to compare the handwritten manuscript and the printed book, and its ease of
navigation, paired with its pleasing aesthetic, make it a good resource for the general
public, students, and scholars alike.
I will be using excerpts from my first paper in forming my critical introduction,
specifically the section discussing Sanditons general themes. I will first use the section
of my essay about the physical properties of the draft manuscript, as outlined by
Kathryn Sutherland, and build from there an understanding of Sanditon as inherently
different from Austens print novels. Building from this understanding, I will invoke
points in my essay to outline what themes Sanditon brings forth, and which themes it

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might leave behind. Finally, I will build the argument from my first paper and attempt
to answer why Austens last work addresses different themes from her print novels, and
in a different style. My introduction will also include photos of images from the time
period, but not video (to the best of my knowledge).
In order to answer this question, I will use evidence from critics such as Brian
Southam, Arthur Axelrad, and Jerome McGann. My annotated bibliography for this
project goes through all of my critical sources in brief detail.
In regards to the technical layout of my WordPress site, I would like to represent
the organization of a scholarly print edition through my header menu. Organized with
headings such as prefatory material, back matter, and Sanditon, users will be able
to navigate through these parent pages into child pages such as Introduction,
Chronology, Manuscript, and 1925 Chapman. By laying out my site in a way that is
familiar to readers of print books, I pay homage to the print book and I also simplify the
online world to make it more accessible and approachable.
As I mentioned before, I hope to integrate the digitized manuscript pages into my
site, ideally through the use of Scribd (a WordPress plug-in) in order to keep readers on
my site and not having to navigate away to another page. I have a challenge in where to
put my transcription of the manuscript: should it be on a separate page as a separate
entity, or should it belong beside the manuscript as a means of better accessing it? As
well, how should I represent the 1925 edition? Should I scan the selected pages in order
to show the look of the first printed version of Sanditon, or should I transcribe it into
text on the web? At this stage, I feel that scanning and also using Scribd for the pages
would be more relevant to my idea of preserving, somewhat resurrecting, and displaying

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the true look of this work, as the bibliographic codes are an important aspect of
understanding the life of this text as both first handwritten and first printed iterations.
I have already briefly described my menu, but it will be presented as follows:
1. About the Project (includes technical note)
a. How to Use this Site (how to navigate, what the site is for)
2. Prefatory Material
a. Author and Editors (Austen biography and short description of myself and
Chapman)
b. Chronology (Chronology including publication of Austens major works
during her lifetime, as well as events relating to the publication of
Sanditon after her death)
c. Introduction (Critical introduction, as outlined above)
d. Note on the Text (Explanation of transcriptions, which edition my site is
based off of, as well as a declaration of anything I have changed in my
transcription(s), and why)
3. Sanditon
a. Draft Manuscript
b. Transcription of Manuscript
c. 1925 First Printed Edition (1925 Chapman)
4. Back Matter
a. Acknowledgements
b. Bibliography
c. Footnotes (to be linked to from other pages, opening in another tab)

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Moving through the site will mirror how people flip through a book, ideally going left to
right through the header menu. However, the flexibility of web and web platforms
(Firefox, Chrome, etc.) enables people to move about any given site in non-linear and
often very personal ways. My site can be used for example, in side-by-side browser
windows to compare the 1925 Chapman and the manuscript directly, without having to
navigate. A person could start at reading my transcription of the manuscript in entirety,
and then compare parts of what they have read to the manuscript and the Chapman.
Readers also have the option, if they wish, to bypass entirely the prefatory material
and/or the back matter, and simply look at the texts. Other readers might bypass the
texts and instead only read the chronology and introduction. These are not expectations,
but examples; I expect, of course, that a reader will choose to begin with the leftmost
menu and continue through until the rightmost (that is, begin at the About page and end
at the Bibliography page; the Footnotes page, although last, is more of a page to consult
when reading the texts).