This leaf, as indicated in collation, does not appear in all copies, and its presence or absence does not seem to indicate any priority of issue, as copies in both states have been noted with and without the advertising slip which, when present, does indicate a later issue.

inserted frontispiece on heavier paper, recto blank, etched portrait of GM by WS (William Strang) on verso, not paginated;
protective tissue guard sheet, not paginated;
title page, verso blank, pp [iii-iv] or [i-ii];
text pp 1-357;
pp [358-60] blank;
endpapers dark gray-green where facing;
top edges untrimmed, fore and bottom edges trimmed;
bound in gray cloth, back cover blank, front cover has design in dark blue of a young woman with her right knee on a chair and holding up her right hand to a gas wall bracket, lettered in blue across the top

CONFESSIONS OF A

YOUNG MAN

and lettered diagonally in gilt across lower right comer

GEORGE MOORE

and spine gilt lettered

CONFESSIONS

OF A

YOUNG

MAN

GEORGE MOORE

SONNENSCHEIN

There are two issues of the first edition:

As above
As above, with the addition of an inserted slip 5 in; 12.7 cm x 4 in; 10.16 cm) tipped in between front endpapers, advertising Parnell and His Island.

The Morgan Library in New York has a possibly unique copy of a preliminary state, differing in several particulars from the regular edition, including the frontispiece and binding, which is red buckram over beveled boards, stamped in gilt with fancy initial letters on spine and front cover. Howard S. Mott, who purchased this copy at the dispersal of the Frank Deardon Library, described it in the Papers Of The Bibliographical Society Of America, Volume 36, First Quarter 1942. He wrote, "A few copies of this book exist with an unflattering photographic frontispiece of the author. It is said that Moore objected to this (understandably) and the etched frontispiece by William Strang was substituted after about twenty copies with the earlier frontispiece had been released." The likeness may have displeased GM, but he had suggested its use, for in a letter to Herbert Wigram, a partner in Swan Sonnenschein, Lowery & Co., he wrote, "I think it would be well to print my portrait in the confessions. It would attract attention for l have a photograph that is very like the author of the confessions." Although withdrawn, the photograph seems to have served as a model for Strang's etching made to replace it. Apparently no copies with the offending frontispiece were actually bound and distributed, but Wigram wrote GM 8 December 1887,”we have sent advance sheets (with portrait) to America," so it seems probable that the binding on the Morgan copy was done in the United States. No other copies with the photographic frontispiece have been located, but it is possible that other sets of the sheets are extant, either bound or unbound. An article about GM, "A Rising Novelist" by Clara Lanza, in the New York World, 21 April 1889, was illustrated with a picture similar to the photograph used in the book and the same picture also was used with a review of Celibates by Harry Thurston Peck in the Bookman (New York), June 1895.

[Formatted as a bulleted list to facilitate reading.]

Chapters I and II originally published in Time, London, July 1887.
Chapters III and IV originally published in Time, August 1887.
Chapters V and VI originally published as “Extracts from a diary, 1875,” in Time, September 1887.
Chapter VII “Synthesis of the Nouvelle Athènes” and chapter VIII “Extracts from a Letter” originally published in Time, October 1887.
Chapter IX originally published in Time, November 1887; the poem “The Sweetness of the Past” in this chapter previously published as “The Love of the Past” in the Spectator, 11 December 1880, and used as a part of the long poem “A Modem Poem” in Pagan Poems (A3); and the poem “Nostalgia” previously anonymously published as “Looking Back” in the Spectator, 15 October 1881.
Chapter X previously unpublished.
Chapter XI “Thoughts in a Strand Lodging” previously unpublished except for two translations from Mallarmé originally published in the unsigned article, “Les Decadents,” in Court and Society Review, 19 January 1887.
Chapter XII previously unpublished.

Later in 1888 a second impression was issued identical with the first, except that the words “Second Edition” were added on the title page flanking the publisher’s device. Sheets of the second impression, in two lots of 500 sets each (according to GM in a letter to the editor of the Athenaeum, 8 December 1888, and in an interview in Pall Mall Gazette, 27 January 1889), were used for an American edition:

A12-a2 First American edition

Brentano’s, Chicago, New York and Paris, 1888; issued at $1.00 in gray cloth binding similar to the English edition but with author’s name in black and in two lines, and at 50¢ in pink wrappers.

A12-2a First American printing

Title Page

CONFESSIONS OF A

YOUNG MAN

GEORGE MOORE

rule

SECOND EDITION

rule

BRENTANOS [sic]

NEW YORK, CHICAGO, WASHINGTON AND PARIS

Launch

Published late 1888 at 50¢

Description

Height: 7 1/8 in; 7.13 in; 18.1 cm

Width: 4 3/4 in; 4.75 in; 12.07 cm

pp [ii], 200, comprising:

title page, verso blank, pp [i-ii];
text pp [1]-199;
p [200] blank;
no endpapers;
issued in grayish green wrappers, publisher’s advertisements on verso of front cover which is lettered on recto

GEORGE MOORE

rule

CONFESSIONS

OF A YOUNG MAN

rule

(AUTHORIZED EDITION.)

rule

BRENTANOS [sic]

NEW YORK, CHICAGO,

WASHINGTON, PARIS

all within single-rule border

Page size and other data from only located copy, in Yale University Library, which is rebound with only front wrapper retained. Also issued in cloth at $1.00, according to the United States Catalog, 1888.

Same as the first edition (A12-a), but with spellings Americanized. According to GM’s letter in the Athenaeum, 8 December 1888, this edition was not authorized, despite a statement on the cover. Plates of this edition were used for further impressions in 1901, 1906, 1907, and 1911. They were also used for:

A12-2a2 Brentano Uniform Edition

Brentano Uniform Edition, New York, 1915. In 1917 this edition was superseded in the series by a revised text (A12-d). The first edition text also was used for:

A12-3a Modem Library

Modem Library, No. 16, New York, 1917, with an “Introduction” by Floyd Dell. It has as a frontispiece a reproduction of the Henry Tonks drawing of GM and the facsimile inscription by him, also used as a frontispiece to the first editions of Sister Teresa (A25-a). After the title was dropped from the series the plates were used for:

A12-3a2 Carlton House

Carlton House, New York, circa 1943.

A12-4a Haldeman-Julius

Haldeman-Julius Publications, Girard, Kansas, 10 June 1927; issued in a paperbound, center wire stapled edition, in a format larger (8 3/8 in; 8.38 in; 21.27 cm x 5 3/8 in; 5.38 in; 13.65 cm) than the firm’s Little Blue Books (see A43).

A12-5a Variorum edition

McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal and London, 30 June 1972, edited by Susan Dick, who provides a “Preface”, “Introduction”, “A Note on the Text”, the first edition text (A12-a), “Variorum Notes” (including textual changes in the 1889 (A12-b), 1904 (A12-c), and 1916 (A12-d) revisions, some of which are not completely accurate), “Critical Notes” (including quotations from a number of GM letters to his family and associates), a “Selected Bibliography” and an “Index”. This edition is a somewhat less detailed version of Miss Dick’s unpublished 1967 Northwestern University doctoral dissertation, “Confessions of Young Man by George Moore: A Variorum Edition.”

A12-b Second English edition, revised

Title Page

CONFESSIONS OF A

YOUNG MAN.

GEORGE MOORE,

Author of “A Mummer’s Wife,” “Parnell and His Island,” etc., etc.

THIRD

publisher’s device

EDITION

LONDON:

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.,

PATERNOSTER SQUARE.

1889.

Launch

Published April 1889 at 3/6

Description

Height: 7 3/8 in; 7.38 in; 18.73 cm

Width: 4 3/4 in; 4.75 in; 12.07 cm

[ ]6, 1-248, 252 (tipped in); pp [2], x, 388, comprising:

blank leaf, not paginated;
half title with

STATES OF AMERICA

in center of verso, pp [i-ii];

inserted etched portrait of GM (by Mortimer Menpes from a photograph supplied by GM), with tissue guard sheet;
title page, verso blank, pp [iii-iv];
thirteen-line dedication À JACQUES BLANCHE in French, verso blank, pp [v-vi];
PREFACE pp [vii]-x;
text pp 1-387;
p [388] blank;
off-white endpapers;
top edges untrimmed, fore and bottom edges trimmed;
bound in olive green cloth, stamped in black on front cover with same design and lettering as first edition (A12-a), except author’s name is omitted, back cover blank,
and spine lettered in black as on first edition, with addition of a double rule at top and bottom.

The dedication and “Preface” are new, the narrator’s name is changed from “Edwin [sometimes Edward] Dayne” to “George Moore.”

[Formatted as a bulleted list to facilitate reading.]

Five pages are added to chapter I
Five pages are added to chapter II
Three pages are added to chapter III
Two pages rewritten in chapter XI
A new chapter of seventeen pages, in the form of a dialogue between “Conscience and I,” is inserted as the penultimate chapter.

A new impression was issued at 2/- in November 1892 as the “Fourth Edition,” in light green paper-covered boards, with stamping of previous editions on front cover and spine, and with a commercial advertisement on the back cover.

A12-c Third English edition, revised

Title Page

CONFESSIONS OF [in green]

A YOUNG MAN [in green]

GEORGE MOORE. 1886.

Edited and Annotated by GEORGE MOORE, 1904.

London: T. WERNER LAURIE [publisher’s name in green]

Clifford’s Inn [two printer's ornaments] 1904

Launch

Published 21 November 1904 at 6/-

Description

Height: 7 1/2 in; 7.5 in; 19.05 cm

Width: 4 3/8 in; 4.38 in; 11.11 cm

a8, A-T8; pp xvi, 304, comprising:

blank leaf, except for signature at bottom of recto, pp [i-ii];
half title with publisher’s device in lower right corner, verso blank, pp [iii-iv];
title page, verso blank, pp [v-vi];
thirteen-line dedication Á JACQUES BLANCHE, verso blank, pp [vii-viii];

PREFACE TO A NEW EDITION OF

“CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG MAN”

pp ix-xvi;
text pp 1-303, with “Colston & Coy, Limited, Printers Edinburgh.” at foot of p 303;
publisher’s advertisement p [304];
white endpapers; top edges trimmed and stained green, fore edges trimmed, bottom edges untrimmed;
bound in medium green cloth, back cover plain except for single-rule border in blind at outer edge, front cover gilt lettered

CONFESSIONS of

a YOUNG MAN

BY GEORGE MOORE

at top and publisher’s monogram in blind at bottom all within single-rule border in blind at outer edge

and spine gilt lettered

CONFESSIONS

of a

YOUNG MAN

rule

GEORGE MOORE

T. WERNER LAURIE

with heavy gilt-rule borders at top and bottom.

The text is the same, with slight revisions, omissions, and additions, as the revised second English edition (A12-b), with a new eight-page “Preface,” also published in Dana, November 1904, and includes an untitled sonnet in French originally printed as “Sonnet Dédicace à Algernon Charles Swinburne” in Martin Luther (A2). Among the additions to the text there is, in section XI, an untitled poem, a revision of “À une Poitrinaire” from Pagan Poems (A3), and two poems in French, “Nuit de Septembre” and “Pour un Tableau de Lord Leighton,” the first originally published as a portion of the duo-drama “La Maitresse Maternelle” in Pagan Poems and republished under its present title in Pall Mall Gazette, 15 January 1895, and again in the Bookman, October 1895, and the second is a revision of “Les Dormeuses” in Pall Mall Gazette, 9 November 1895. Second issue bound in bright red cloth with top edges stained red.

Copies of the second issue were issued in the United States:

A12-C2 Mitchell Kennerley

Mitchell Kennerley, New York, with a slip (1in; 2.54 cm x 3 5/8 in; 3.63 in; 9.21 cm) lettered in black with the name of American publisher pasted over the Laurie imprint on the title page. Also 2000 sets of sheets of the Laurie edition with half title and title page (in black) reset, were used for:

A12-C3 Bell’s Indian and Colonial Library

Bell’s Indian and Colonial Library, No. 591. George Bell and Sons, London, 1904. Reissued in 1906. The revised text of these printings also was used for:

A12-2c Tauchnitz

Collection of British Authors, Vol. 3812, Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig, 1905. In a letter to Lady Cunard (dated “Spring 1905” by the editor) GM wrote, “I did not send you the Confessions because I am waiting for the Tauchnitz edition. The English edition is detestable — thoroughly detestable. I have written to Leipzig to ask if they will print a few copies on Holland paper (I suppose I should say Dutch paper). The ordinary edition will arrive here on Wednesday or Thursday — you shall have your copy on Friday.” No Dutch paper copy, nor any other reference to such copies, has been located.

A12-d Fourth edition (second Brentano Uniform) revised

Title Page

CONFESSIONS OF

A YOUNG MAN

GEORGE MOORE, 1886

EDITED AND ANNOTATED

BY GEORGE MOORE 1904

AND AGAIN IN 1916

diamond-shaped publisher's device

NEW YORK

BRENTANO’S

1917

Launch

Published 1917 at $1.50

Description

Height: 7 7/8; 7.88 in; 20 cm in;

Width: 5 3/8 in; 5.38 in; 3.65 cm

[1]8, 2-188; pp [6], viii, 274, comprising:

half title, with list of

WORKS OF GEORGE MOORE

NEW AND REVISED EDITION

within single-rule box on verso, not paginated;

title page, with COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY BRENTANO’S on verso, not paginated;
dedication À JACQUES BLANCHE, verso blank, not paginated;
PREFACE, pp i-viii;
text pp 1-271;
pp [272-74] blank;
white endpapers;
top edges trimmed and stained green, fore and bottom edges untrimmed;
bound in green ribbed cloth, back and front covers plain, gilt decorations at top and bottom of spine, which is gilt lettered

CONFESSIONS

OF A

YOUNG

MAN

GEORGE

MOORE

BRENTANO’S

The text shows many minor revisions and additions from the 1904 edition (A12-c), and a slight alteration is made in the French of the first sentence of the dedication, here “et jài [sic] eu I’idée” in place of “et j’étais inspiré” of the 1889 and 1904 texts.

The “Preface” is new, but again includes the letter from Walter Pater first published in the “Preface” to the 1904 edition.

The dedicatory sonnet to Swinburne from Martin Luther reprinted in the 1904 “Preface” is transferred to section XI.

Other additions to the same section are a poem in French, “Pour un Tableau de Rubens” originally published as “Vers. Pour le Portrait de Hélène Froment par Rubens” in Daily Express (Dublin), 30 September 1899; then, untitled, in chapter IX of the first edition of The Lake (A27-a); and also “La Ballade d’Alfred, Alfred aux Belles Dents” which is a revised version of La Ballade de l’Amant de Coeur (A8).

A third untitled translation from Mallarmé added to section XIV was originally published as “The Future Phenomenon” in the third number of The Savoy, July 1896. The text pages of this edition were reproduced by photo-offset for a padded, paperbound edition:

A12-d2 Capricorn Books

Capricorn Books, No. 20, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1959, with an Introduction by Robert M. Coates.

A12-2d Fourth English edition, revised

Title Page

CONFESSIONS OF

A YOUNG MAN

GEORGE MOORE. 1886

EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY GEORGE MOORE, 1904

AND AGAIN IN 1916

publisher’s device of windmill, flanked by letters W and H, within single-rule box

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN

Launch

Published April 1918 at 6/-. Although dated 1917 on verso of title leaf, the date is as given here and subsequent impressions carry the notation on verso of title leaf “First published April 1918,” which is also the date given in the English Catalogue.

Description

Height: 7 3/8 in; 7.38 in; 18.73 cm

Width: 4 3/4;in; 4.75 in; 12.07 cm

[ ]8, A-O8, pp [2], xiv, 224, comprising:

blank leaf, not paginated;
half title, with list of WORKS BY GEORGE MOORE on verso, pp [i-ii];
title page, with LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 1917 at foot of verso, pp [iii-iv];
dedication À JACQUES BLANCHE, verso blank, pp v-[vi];
PREFACE pp vii-xiii;
p [xiv] blank;

Florian J. Shasky has a copy of this edition with an errata slip tipped in between pp [xiv] and [1], correcting several errors carried over from the revised Brentano edition (A12-d). All were corrected before the plates of this edition were used for the expanded 1926 edition (A12-2d2)

text pp [1]-224, with BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND at foot of p 224;
followed by an inserted 16-page publisher’s catalogue;
white endpapers;
top and fore edges trimmed, bottom edges untrimmed;
bound in dark blue cloth, with large elongated paneled design enclosed within double-rule border in blind on front cover, publisher’s monogram device in blind in lower right corner of back cover

some copies have back cover plain and lack inserted publisher’s catalogue

spine gilt stamped

CONFESSIONS

OF A

YOUNG

MAN

GEORGE

MOORE

enclosed within single-rule border with scallop-shaped design at top and bottom

HEINEMANN

Further minor revisions and deletions in text, including correction of the error in the French of the first sentence of the dedication, and with “La Ballade d’Alfred…” transferred to section XIV, which is the dialogue between “Conscience” and “I.”

A12-2d2 Fifth English edition, expanded:

Title Page

[Not in Gilcher]

Launch

In February 1926 Heinemann issued an enlarged edition

Description

In February 1926 Heinemann issued an enlarged edition in the same format as the fourth English edition (A12-2d), using the plates of that edition, with an additional leaf (pp [xv-xvi]) tipped in between [ ]8 and A1 having an author’s NOTE on recto, and five additional gatherings, P-T8, of new text (pp [225]-301), printer’s imprint transferred from p 224 to p [302], and pp [303-4] blank.

Content

Same as previous Heinemann edition, with additions:

[Formatted as a bulleted list to facilitate reading.]

“Note” by GM, explaining the inclusion of the new material
“Mummer Worship” reprinted from Impressions and Opinions (A15)
“A Visit to Medan,” retitled reprinting of “My Impressions of Zola” from 1913 edition of Impressions and Opinions (A15-b)
“An Actress of the Eighteenth Century” reprinted from Impressions and Opinions (A15-b)
“Le Revers d’un Grand Homme” reprinted from Impressions and Opinions (A15-b)
“Epistle to the Cymry” originally published in the Fortnightly Review, September 1914

A copy of this edition in the University of Illinois library (one of 35 books used by GM for purposes of revision, sold after his death to a London dealer and purchased in 1955 by Illinois) has tipped-in typed and autograph corrections. These may have been prepared by GM for the

Uniform Edition, but the corrections were never published. Perhaps they were overlooked or

abandoned. An account of them is given in “ ‘I am still a young man’: George Moore’s Last

Revisions of Confessions of a Young Man” by W. Eugene Davis and Mark J. Lidman in Bulletin of the New York Public Library, Autumn 1975.

The plates of this expanded edition were used for two further printings:

A12-2d3 Travelers’ Library

Travelers’ Library, No. 76, Heinemann, London, March 1928; reprinted April 1928, and again in 1929.

A12-2d4 Windmill Library

Windmill Library, Heinemann, London, July 1933. The expanded text also was used for:

A12-3d Penguin Books

Penguin Books, No. 185, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, January 1939. The second (September 1939) and subsequent printings include a short biographical note of GM by Osbert Burdett, previously used on the jacket of the Penguin edition of Esther Waters (A19-6c).

A12-e Carra Edition

Title Page

Carra Edition, Volume IX, Boni and Liveright, New York, Although a detailed collation is not given, this edition is given a separate textual letter as it is the first printing of the final text.

Launch

Published 20 June 1923 according to Library of Congress copyright records, but the Boni and Liveright trade edition of Avowals (A38-3a2) has a note on the verso of the title leaf, “First issued in Carra Edition, May, 1923.”

Description

In this edition, Confessions of a Young Man is included in the same volume as Avowals, and although it is listed first on title page and spine label, it is printed after the later book on pp [287]-489. There is a tipped-in frontispiece, protected by a tissue guard sheet which is lettered in red at bottom of verso

GEORGE MOORE

From a sketch by Manet

Same as the frontispiece of the expanded edition of Modern Painting (A17-b). The original painting is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The text is slightly revised and “Vers d’Album” is added in section X. This final text, with the addition of the five articles added in the expanded fifth English edition (A12-2d2), was used for:

A12-2e Heinemann Uniform Edition

Uniform Edition, Heinemann, London, June 1933. Reissued in a different binding as:

A12-2e2 Ebury Edition

Ebury Edition, Heinemann, London, June 1937. Reprinted 21 July 1952. Plates of this edition previously used for:

A12-2e3 Heinemann edition

William Heinemann Ltd., London & Toronto, [1935]. This impression was issued in a smaller format, on thinner paper, with title on title page in red, and bound in half-leather. This expanded text also used for:

A12-3e Digit Books

Digit Books, G465, Brown, Watson Limited, London, 1961.

Bibliographical Comment

See D:Cz-3 for Czech, D:Fr-9 and D:Fr-10 for French, D:It-l for Italian, and D:Ja-l for Japanese translations.

Source: Curated by George Moore Interactive LLC (georgemooreinteractive.org) — Shared for research, educational, and personal use.