Versions of Battle–Pieces

John Brown Currently in the links to Versions of Battle-Pieces below, readers can compare, side-by-side and poem-by-poem, two copies (A & C) of Battle-Pieces, each with Melville’s penciled revisions. They can also inspect MEL’s contextual annotations of the poems in Juxta Editions, which includes TextLab transcriptions of Melville’s handwritten revisions in print and revision narratives. For an explanation of the versions, continue reading below the links.

When fully realized, MEL’s edition of Battle-Pieces will include magazine, manuscript, and revisions to print versions of the poems as well as reprints in anthologies.