EDITORIAL POLICY

The purpose of the Frederick Law Olmsted Papers project is to make generally available, in annotated form, the most significant of Olmsted’s letters, unpublished writings, design reports, and newspaper and periodical articles. The letterpress edition will consist of eight volumes of selected documents arranged in chronological order, two volumes of Olmsted’s reports to cities on parks, parkways and parkway systems, one volume of his writings on the general theory of landscape design and one volume of plans and illustrations of his work.

Although the choice of letters for a selected edition of papers is to some extent a subjective matter, the editors require that every document published should meet at least one of three criteria: first, it should give the reader insight into Olmsted’s character; second, it should present valuable commentary on his times; or third, it should contain an important statement on landscape design.

The editors feel that it is their responsibility to make clear the context within which Olmsted wrote the documents selected and to explain the significance of certain statements that readers not expert in the field might otherwise not adequately comprehend. They feel also that part of their function is to identify the persons, places and events Olmsted mentions, and to explain his relation to them. The annotation in these volumes is fuller than it would be in a complete edition of Olmsted’s papers, where the documents would more frequently annotate one another. In order to supply background information and provide continuity within each volume, the editors make use of volume introductions, biographical directories, and chapter headnotes, as well as chronologies, itineraries, genealogies and other aids for the reader.

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In transcribing the documents for publication, the intent of the editors was to prepare texts that convey Olmsted’s meaning clearly. The complete existing text of each letter is presented. Drafts of letters and other writings appear in what the editors consider to be their final form. All legible words that Olmsted wrote are included except those he inadvertently repeated. Words that he crossed out are omitted unless they are considered to be of particular interest. If included they are accompanied by an explanatory note. The treatment of illegible and missing words is as follows:

• 1. [. . .] indicates illegible words or words missing because of mutilation of the manuscript.
• 2. [italic] indicates the editors’ reading of partially missing words.
• 3. [roman] indicates a word supplied by the editors.

Olmsted’s erratic spelling—he consistently misspelled words with double consonants, such as “dissapoint,” and “loose” for “lose”—is silently corrected unless it is clear that he deliberately misspelled a word for humorous effect or to convey dialect. English variants of standard American spellings are left as he wrote them. Words in languages other than English are rendered as he spelled them. Except for some that are in common use, such as “etc., ” contractions and abbreviations are silently expanded.

When the original punctuation leaves the meaning or structure of a sentence unclear, it is altered. Where Olmsted provides a punctuation mark at only one end of a subordinate clause, a matching punctuation mark is added at the other end of the clause. In a long and involved sentence, long appositive phrases are set off by dashes, while shorter interior clauses are indicated by commas. In cases where a sentence is particularly difficult to follow, parentheses are added to enable the reader to perceive more clearly the main flow of the sentence. Paragraphing is supplied within long sections that Olmsted left unparagraphed and where he indicated paragraphing by the use of long dashes or larger than normal spaces between sentences.

Material that Olmsted added in the margins that has no clear place in the text is printed at the end of the document with an explanatory note. Notes or jottings on a document by other persons are not included in the document itself, but if informative, are given in a note. Olmsted’s rare footnotes are presented at the end of the document in which they appear.

Dates for documents are given as they appear in the original, but abbreviations are spelled out. If that information is partial, incorrect, or missing, the probable date or time period is supplied in brackets, with an explanatory note if needed. Addresses are given whenever they occur on the original letters.

The documents are presented in chronological order except for occasional pieces like the autobiographical fragments and “The Real China” in volume I, which are reminiscences written at a later time. The latter are presented with the letters from the period they describe.

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Full bibliographical data are provided in the first citation of a source in each chapter except when the source is listed in “Short Titles Used in Citations.” A full listing of sources on an individual is given in the note accompanying the first mention of that individual in the documents of a volume. In subsequent references, sources are given only for additional information supplied. Birth and death dates of persons mentioned in the text of the letters are given in the first note identifying them and, for selected persons, in the index.

Unless otherwise indicated, all manuscript material referred to is in the Frederick Law Olmsted Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.