6. Theorizing the Digital Scholarly Edition

Endeavouring to conceptualise the digital scholarly edition, we may do well to begin by asking what a scholarly edition is taken to be in terms of orthodox principles. In general outline, a scholarly edition is the presentation of a text — literary, historical, philosophical, juridical — or of a work (mainly, a work of literature) in its often enough several texts, through the agency of an editor in lieu of the author of the text, or work. We see the editor as ‘agency’, functionary and guardi..