Note: The reader may discover textual differences in the various editions of Billy Budd. There is even disagreement in the form of the title, the names of ships, epigraphs or quotations at the heads of chapters, and chapter divisions. This situation arises from the publishing history of the book. The work was not edited or printed in Melville’s lifetime. At his death he left behind a rough manuscript containing many ambiguities and variant readings, some of which his wife tried to reconcile.
The book was first published in 1924. Since then, several scholars working from the original manuscript have prepared editions representing their best efforts to provide a version of Billy Budd that represents Melville’s final intentions. Earlier editions are: Billy Budd, Foretopman, ed. Raymond Weaver (New York: Horace Liveright, 1928); and Billy Budd (An Inside Narrative), ed. Fredric Barron Freeman and revised by Elizabeth Treeman (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1948, 1956). The chapterization in these Notes conforms to the most recent version, considered to be the definitive text: Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative), ed. Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
