> But there is an authoritative version of a particular writer's version of a particular story Not necessarily. I heard this about, I think "Ulysses," but prob

> But there is an authoritative version of a particular writer's version of a particular story Not necessarily. I heard this about, I think "Ulysses," but probably applies to most published books -- there are almost always changes between editions (if a books goes through multiple printings), differences in printings between different markets (even if those markets are in the same language), notes the author may have written at home but didn't get published, notes the author wrote on the review copy that got left out of the published version or got misunderstood or misspelled or otherwise improperly published... A "text" turns out to be a lot less definitive of thing than it may at first appear.