Variorum Edition
A scholarly edition of a work that gathers the variant readings of earlier editions and the notes of previous editors.
A variorum edition — from the Latin 'cum notis variorum', 'with the notes of various persons' — presents a work together with a full record of textual variants and a compendium of prior editorial commentary. The New Variorum Shakespeare, launched in 1871 and still unfinished for some plays, is the reference model: every line of the play is followed by every variant reading in every substantive edition and by a sampling of what earlier editors have said about it.
The purpose is scholarly stability. Once a variorum exists, quoting a passage carries a firm sense of which words are secure, which are conjectural, and which have provoked argument for centuries. A scholar can then quote responsibly, knowing whether they are relying on a reading everyone accepts or one that is only one editor's guess.
Variorum work is slow, expensive, and unglamorous, which is why relatively few authors have received it — Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dante, Milton, a handful of others. The absence of a variorum is often felt most acutely when a much-quoted passage turns out to depend on a textual choice most readers do not know exists.
Common mistake: quoting from a variorum's apparatus (its notes) as if it were the main text. The apparatus records what other editors have said and what other manuscripts read; it is a witness, not the work itself. Careful citation distinguishes 'Shakespeare, Hamlet' from 'variorum note on Hamlet, ed. Furness'.
“The Furness Variorum Shakespeare records, for a single line, dozens of variant readings and centuries of editorial argument.”
Keep reading the glossary
A reference work listing every occurrence of every significant word in a text, with its context and location.
The original record of a quote — the book, letter, speech, or recording in which it first appeared.
A later account that reports a quote, rather than recording it directly.
How faithfully a translated quote preserves the meaning and music of the original.