| About the Editor | About the Text and Images |
| About the Design and Markup of the Edition |

The Editor : Stephen C. Behrendt is George Holmes Distinguished University Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. He has published widely on the Shelleys and on Blake, in addition to authoring numerous studies of relations among the arts. Recent books include Shellley and His Audiences (1989), Approaches to Teaching Shelley's 'Frankenstein' (1990), Reading William Blake (1992), and Royal Mourning and Regency Culture: Elegies and Memorials of Princess Charlotte (1997). His poetry has also been published widely and includes two books: Instruments of the Bones (1992) and A Step in the Dark (1996). His major current research centers on British women poets of the Romantic period; among projects in this area he is presently co-editing an electronic archive of Scottish women poets of the Romantic period (forthcoming, Alexander Street Press).

The Text and Images : According to its best modern editor, Jeffrey N. Cox, Presumption exists in two primary performing texts. The first is a text called "Frankenstein": A Melo-Dramatic Opera in Three Acts. This is the so-called "Larpent" version, the text that was routinely submitted for scrutiny to John Larpent (1741-1824), whose post as Examiner of Plays was roughly equivalent to that of government censor. The second text appears in a scarce collection called Dick's Standard Plays (c. 1865). The text that appears on this Web site is the editor's own editorial reconstruction from these two sources and is based upon the text published by Jeffrey N. Cox in Seven Gothic Dramas, to which one should turn for the most reliable information about what, precisely, is in one version or another, or both. The editor's aim in developing the present text has been simply to provide an accessible text for the generalist seeking some clear sense of the early stage incarnations of Peake's influential play.

For further details about the text, its history and its variant versions, see the accounts by Cox and St. Clair, noted in the Bibliography.

All images are derived from Oxberry's Dramatic Biography and Histrionic Anecdotes (London: G. Virtue, 1825-26) and Lives of the Most Celebrated Actors and Actresses by Thomas Marshall (London: E. Appleyard, 1848) and were made available courtesy of the Don L. Love Memorial Library, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The Design and Markup of the Edition : This hypertext edition was designed and marked up by J. Michael Duvall at the University of Maryland. Making extensive use of tables and style sheets for layout and presentation, it will work best when viewed with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator versions 5.0 and 4.7, respectively, and higher. Aside from two deviations from the standard, the HTML markup is HTML 4.01/Transitional compliant, as set out by the World Wide Web Consortium.