The Apparatus

Abstract

The apparatus is one of the most crucial parts of an edition, codifying and encapsulating for the reader’s benefit all the research that the editor has done to make sense of the text at both a general and a specific level. Indeed, in many ways this is where editors are at their most important. Of this information, some is best presented as an introduction, for the reader to consult in order to make sense of the text as a whole prior to embarking on it, while some is more appropriately consigned to footnotes or a commentary, to be consulted in relation to specific individual passages. Lastly, reference material for use in relation to the text as a whole may be best placed at the end of the book — or at the end of each volume in the case of multi-volume editions — while certain forms of technical information may be appropriately presented as appendices. All these categories can, of course, be equally easily presented electronically by the use of hypertext. Here, each type of editorial matter will be dealt with separately, giving consideration to the coverage that is proper and hence what readers might expect in each case.