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Language Variants

Auflage; Editie; Painos; Edición.

Usage Notes

The term is used to denote geographical variants, to specify size, to indicate several issues of a newspaper published on the same day, and to distinguish between issues published on different days of the week—for example, a regular feature for a weekend edition. The term is not widely used because few collections contain multiple digitised editions. In the Gale collections, the final London edition of a newspaper is always microfilmed, but regional editions, such as Irish or Scottish editions, are excluded, as are editions which came out earlier in the day. For the British Library, since 1869 and the implementation of Legal Deposit legislation, the rule has been that a single issue per title is supplied (usually the last edition where relevant). Multiple editions were sometimes submitted by publishers for the 1820s–1860s period. Selecting which of these editions to digitise, or all of them, is an issue under discussion with the Library’s current Heritage Made Digital digitisation programme. The term was used, though not commonly, in the nineteenth century, where “edition” more usually referred to a specific printing of a book rather than a newspaper.

Examples:

As a geographical variant

Masthead of The Sportsman, 14 October 1885: 1. Melbourne edition. Trove.

“Most were short-lived but the London edition of the Detroit Free Press, which was composed almost entirely of American humour, sold between 100,000 and 300,000 weekly copies during the 1880s and 1890s.” [Nicholson 2012, 285] 

To specify size

“During that time period, at least, the paper was published in eight-page editions, with each page containing four columns.” [Simons, 389] 

“The differences between these editions and the original tri-weekly sheets are not limited to the differences of appearance.” [Bateson, 155]

Multiple issues on the same day

“Daily newspapers and some weeklies had multiple editions in the nineteenth century, that is successive editions, usually with the same date.” [DNCJ, LRB, 431]

“More important in every way was the offer I received from Mr. J. R. Robinson, my former colleague on the Weekly Chronicle, who had now become editor of the Express, the then evening edition of the Daily News, to do some work for him…” [Yates, 1.285]

Masthead of The Tasmanian and Austral-Asiatic Review, 24 January 1834: 1. Friday evening edition. Trove.

To distinguish between issues on different days

In 1884 the Preston Guardian had cut the price of its Saturday edition from 2d to 1½d…” [Hobbs 2018, 45]

“Produced in a regular rhythm of daily editions, containing a familiar staple of home news, foreign news, commercial information and political commentary, the newspaper embodied a Victorian sense of constancy and stability…” [Cronin, 586]

“The Caledonian Mercury goes a step further, interpreting Ainsworth’s narrative as being so enmeshed within its context as to warrant the extension of Dickens’s child metaphor from Bentley’s to Jack: ‘There is no appearance in the number before us of any change in the periodical; all is sparkling and brilliant as in the most favoured days of its childhood and its pains taking attentive nurse. “Jack Sheppard” increases upon our affection as he grows in stature.’” [“Literature.” Caledonian Mercury 18593 (March 11, 1839): 4, qtd. in Droge, 41]

“From “Die Presse”, 13. Mai 1905. Professor Dr. R. v. Wettstein is mentioned as the author of an article about the German School Association. A personal opinion is expressed, as in every Saturday edition at that time.” [Europeana Newspapers 2015, 44]

Edition statements are often found in the masthead or in the publisher’s block.” [Sagendorf and Moore, 20]