Alessandro Manzoni

I Promessi sposi. Storia milanese del secolo XVII scoperta e rifatta

Milan, Vincenzo Ferrario, 1825-6, in 8°, contemporary blind-panelled half calf, lettered in brown label to the spine, three volumes, pp. [4] 352; [4] 368; [4] 416 [2] with errata.

First edition.

The first edition of The betrothed, published in three volumes, is also known as “ventisettana” (an adjective for 27, used uniquely for this book) because it was printed in 1827, though the title pages of the first two volumes say 1825 and  the third says 1826: Manzoni had already finished revising his novel in June 1824 and gave the manuscript to the printer Giuseppe Ferrario: hoping the whole printing process would be finished during the following year, he printed the first volume with the date 1825; the second volume did indeed appear in 1825, but he started working on the third in 1826 (which was the date he used) and it was printed only in June 1827.
Copies printed on laid paper in Havana wrappers were sold for 12 lire, whereas those printed on tissue paper were sold for 20 lire; a third run on a larger paper size in azure wrappers was also printed, thought the price was not specified.

Manzoni followed the printing process closely and often intervened with corrections, which is why there are a few discrepancies in the text: there are no alterations in the first volume and only a few minor ones in the second, but the third is far more interesting:
— p. 298, l. 13: a closed quotation mark opens a line of dialogue;
— p. 412, l. 1: an L missing at the end of the line in «al-|tro»;
— p. 378, l. 13: the preposition “di” is missing in the sentence «in più d’un luogo di questa storia» (the mistake was also highlighted in the errata);
— p. 330, l. 14: in some copies the text reads «gioia carnale», in others «gioia mondana»

While the first three are all typographical errors the printer could have corrected, the last is the only variant which can certainly be attributed to Manzoni himself, though it is hard to determine which of the two variants was the first: Harris and Sartorielli argue that the earlier lectio read “carnale”, which Manzoni then corrected with “mondana”, one of their points being that there are fewer copies bearing the latter variant.

Bibliography

— Harris e Sartorelli, La Ventisettana dei Promessi sposi: collazione e cancellantia (Annali manzoniani n.s. I - 2016).
— Parenti, Bibl. manzoniana, p. 35.