markk

Last month a new annotated edition of Ulysses Grant's memoirs was published by Liveright. So far it's getting positive reviews, and though I read the Library of America edition a couple of years ago the idea of reading an annotated edition explaining the elements that eluded me the last time around is appealing.

The problem is, it's not the only annotated edition that has recently been published, as Belknap Press recently came out with one edited by Grant scholar John Marszalek that was also greeted with acclaim. I plan on sitting down some time soon with them to figure out which to read, only I'm annoyed at having to do so at all. Because for all of the reviews that have bene published about the Liveright edition, not a single one so far has bothered to even mention the one from Belknap, much less compare the two. What's the point of reviewing a new edition of a book if it isn't going to be compared to its predecessors? Is that really asking too much of a reviewer?