prietor."
The first of the pirated editions. Some copies have no author
credit.
1851
Boston. "Printed for the Publishers."
Attached to the end, without page break, is a short narrative poem
with prose introduction, "Henry and Julia, a tale of real life"
(omitted from this e-text).
1864
Philadelphia, Lippincott.
With two exceptions, this is a reprint of the 1851 edition,
including obvious typographical errors and with identical
punctuation. There is a new frontispiece (the 1851 edition had
none). The "Henry and Julia" poem is omitted. Instead, the final
page compresses the last two pages (one full page plus seven lines
of text and a four-line footnote) of the 1851 edition into one,
using a noticeably smaller font.
1870?
New York, Leavitt & Allen.
The date is hypothetical, based on librarian's notation. The book
is probably a reprint of the 1836 Boston edition, which has the same
page count (significantly different from other known editions); 1836
is also a plausible date for the frontispiece.

General Differences:

In the 1804 and 1811 texts, dialogue is usually punctuated as

"To this place (said Melissa) have I taken...."

with some variation between brackets [] and parentheses (). In the 1870
text, dialogue has "modern" punctuation with single quotes:

'To this place,' said Melissa, 'have I taken....'

The earlier versions are _more_ likely to use "American" spellings such
as "jail" (but "gaoler") and "honor"; later editions (published in the
U.S.) use "British" spellings such as "gaol" and "honour". The older
form "shew" appears only in the earliest editions.

The spelling "stupify" is used consistently, and "vallies" is almost
universal. The spellings "discreet(ly)" and "discrete(ly)" seem to have
been used interchangeably. Names in "New" such as "New London" were
generally hyphenated in 1804; later versions have fewer hyphens, but
they never disappear altogether.

The ampersand & appears a few dozen times in the original (1804)
version; in 1811 most were changed to "and", and in later editions it
survived only in the form "&c."

The 1804 and 1811 texts use "consolate" for "console" almost everywhere,
and the name is spelled Wyllys, changed in later editions to Wyllis. The
1811 text consistently uses the spelling "whipperwill", and often uses
"come" and "become" for "came" and "became". The 1851 text often uses
n