In this age of "new editions," it is a wonder that no one has favoured the
public with a reprint, with notes _variorum_, of this celebrated English
classic.
Dr. Dibdin, in a note to his edition of More's _Utopia_, vol. ii. p. 97.,
says:
"Whoever will be at the trouble of consulting Part II, sect. IV. memb..
i. subsect. 4. of the last folio edition of Burton [1676], will see how
it varies from the first folio of 1624; and will, in consequence,
regret the omission of the notice of these variations in the octavo
editions of Burton recently published."
The octavo editions here referred to are those of 1800 and 1806; the
latter, I believe, edited by Edward Du Bois. The folio of 1676 is, in all
probability, an exact reprint of that of 1651, which certainly differs
considerably from those of an earlier date. Henry Cripps, the publisher of
the edition of 1651, has the following notice:
"_To the Reader._
Be pleased to know (courteous Reader) that since the last impression of
this Book, the ingenuous author of it is deceased, leaving a copy of it
exactly corrected, with several considerable additions by his own hand.
This copy he committed to my care and custody, with directions to have
those additions inserted in the next edition; which, in order to his
command and the publicke good, is faithfully performed in this last
impression.