More concerning the manuscript of the BOTNS The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 27 Jan 1998 https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/307 Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. ============================================================================== CRCulver — 27 Jan 1998, 16:08 Friends, After careful study of the BOTNS appendices, I now concur with Mr. Driussi's opinion that Wolfe did more than simply translate a single manuscript. In _Lictor_'s appendix "A Note on Provincial Administration," Wolfe begins the second paragraph with "At the period of the manuscripts..." Notice that manuscripts is here in the plural. _Citadel_'s appendix says much the same thing. It begins with "Nowhere are the manuscripts of the Book of the New Sun more obscure..." Here, we have the plural again. The plural is used a few more times in this appendix, in paragraph 8. We know of two manuscripts. Both written by Severian, one was placed in Master Ultan's Library (_Citadel_, XXXVIII, paragraph 3), and the second was placed in a lead coffer and set adrift the seas of space and time (ibid., and also in _Urth_). Perhaps more copies were made, so that "manuscripts" is especially plural. Now for my question: Is the copy of the BOTNS which is given to Thecla in her cell Severian's first manuscript, or a copy? (I don't know if we have a definite answer to this). I have many more questions concerning manuscripts, but these will wait until a future mailing. Christopher R. Culver http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html ------------------------------------------------ "Ignorance, that light of fools steers a wayward path" -Brendan Perry ------------------------------------------------------------------------------