For over two years, John Morrill and a team of eight
researchers have been engaged in one of the most ambitious editorial projects
in modern Cromwell studies: A New Critical Edition of all the Writings and
Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. Their work promises to reshape the textual
foundations on which Cromwell scholarship has rested for more than a century.
In this short Q&A, Morrill outlines the scope, challenges, and implications
of the project.
Is this a definitive version of Cromwell’s writings, or
is there more to be done?
Morrill: Nine of us have spent two years tracking
down Cromwell material. We have found little significant new material (although
we do have new versions of some of the speeches), but we have tracked down many
items not seen since they were poorly transcribed in the 18th and 19th
centuries. We think it very unlikely, but not impossible, that there is unknown
material ‘out there’.
How different an Oliver Cromwell emerges from your
research?
Morrill: There is nothing transformative. But by
excluding a few items we think are apocryphal, improving the texts of some
important letters, and understanding the context better, we think there will be
many small things that will cumulatively make quite a difference. How much will
only be realised when I complete my new biography based on the new edition in
2015 or 2016.
What was the most difficult problem encountered by your
researchers?
Morrill: A high proportion of Cromwell’s letters and
speeches exist not in autographs but in multiple early copies — especially for
the late 1640s and early 1650s, when we have multiple print versions of each
letter but no manuscript. Most of the speeches he made to Parliament also
appear in multiple copies from different scribes. Stabilising those texts has
been rewarding but difficult.
Do the commentaries and headnotes represent a move away
from previous historiography on Cromwell?
Morrill: We will publish three volumes of ‘texts’,
each writing or speech with a contextual headnote and normal footnotes saying
who people are, noting major differences between the various versions, etc. And
there will be two companion volumes — one a set of essays on the edition
(Cromwell’s handwriting, why some things survive and others don’t, and
exploring the reliability of texts which are not autographs), and one a set of
interpretative essays by a range of scholars as they work with the new edition
(Cromwell’s faith, his politics, his relations with his family, with the Army,
with Parliament, etc.). We think this will make the edition much more reliable
than earlier ones, much more usable and much more useful.
Are the volumes aimed primarily at an academic audience,
or will they be accessible to a wider readership?
Morrill: The texts are presented in their original
spelling and punctuation, so they are a bit harder to follow than modernised
ones would be, but the contextual headnotes and footnotes should allow anyone
interested in the period to use the volumes. It will be available online with
Oxford Scholarly Editions Online — the first port of call for scholars — but it
will also appear in handsome volumes of 800, 800, 800, 400 and 400 pages.
What is the expected publication date?
Morrill: We have completed the searches, completed
the transcriptions, and decided in almost every case which version to use as
our ‘proof text’. Nine of us will now write the headnotes and footnotes and
hope to complete that by September 2014, with publication by the end of 2015.
