Epilogue – courtesy of Mark Twain
n
nWell, my book is written--let it go. But if it were
nonly to write over again there wouldn't be so
nmany things left out. They burn in me; and they
nkeep multiplying; but now they can't ever be
nsaid. And besides, they would require a
nlibrary...
n- Letter to W. D. Howells, 9/22/1889
RE: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

What I like about this quote from Twain is that it suggests a model of the book as a palimpsest – as a collapsing of what is written, what has been left out, and what can never be said.  And it recognizes the latent multiplicity of a text – the way in which letting loose those suppressed versions, those restrictive choices would necessitate a library to house the textual proliferation that would ensue.  That’s precisely what we’re doing here, I would argue.  We’re providing a digital library to enable just that kind of fascinating proliferation at the level of the text and of its critical apparatus.  We hope researchers will find it indispensible … we suspect Mark Twain would approve.