The Fluid Text: A Theory of Revision and Editing for Book and Screen

The term fluid text refers to any literary work that exists in multiple versions--for example, an author's drafts, publisher's proofs, revised editions, adaptations for film or stage, expurgations for children, and so on. The Fluid Text urges the importance of examining these variations in their cultural contexts because of the valuable record they provide of the interpretations of both the act of authorial creativity and societal pressures. The book's core argument is that, although literary works are often considered to be fixed objects, they are in fact fluid works-in-progress that shift and change according to many factors, including their cultural situation.

The Fluid Text examines authorial, editorial, and cultural (i.e., adaptations, bowdlerizations) changes to texts and provides the first coherent theoretical, critical, and editorial approach to various versions of Melville's Typee to present protocols for fluid-text analysis and to demonstrate how book and computer screen can be used effectively in tandem to present textual information.