Underscores instead of names

[Katsunami]

Hi,

In the older classics, I often encounter underscores where names, dates or times should have been. See an example in the screenshot.

Why is that?

I can't imagine a writer protecting the privacy of cities or people that don't even exist outside of his own book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Hi,

In the older classics, I often encounter underscores where names, dates or times should have been. See an example in the screenshot.

Why is that?

I can't imagine a writer protecting the privacy of cities or people that don't even exist outside of his own book.

have you checked the eBook to make sure the underscores are really there?

[theducks]

I suspect that was intended as a replica of a 'fill in the blanks' legal document of the time.

Thinking back, these were common even in the 1970's before privately owned Word Processors became common, thus allowing 1-off legal documents to be quickly created with the proper data inserted.

[theducks]

And those were printer 'rules' (a form of type for making lines)

[Witty Username]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Hi,

In the older classics, I often encounter underscores where names, dates or times should have been. See an example in the screenshot.

Why is that?

I can't imagine a writer protecting the privacy of cities or people that don't even exist outside of his own book.

I've always understood this to be a literary convention to imply that the story could be true and not fiction.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by theducks

I suspect that was intended as a replica of a 'fill in the blanks' legal document of the time.

Thinking back, these were common even in the 1970's before privately owned Word Processors became common, thus allowing 1-off legal documents to be quickly created with the proper data inserted.

That is exactly the impression I get.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Witty Username

I've always understood this to be a literary convention to imply that the story could be true and not fiction.

Exactly so. It's not a 'fill in the blanks', it's just deliberate ambiguity.

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Hi,

In the older classics, I often encounter underscores where names, dates or times should have been. See an example in the screenshot.

Why is that?

I can't imagine a writer protecting the privacy of cities or people that don't even exist outside of his own book.

I noticed this with dates specifically. Always thought it was something the author intended.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

have you checked the eBook to make sure the underscores are really there?

Yes. I have two versions of this ebook, and both contain these underscores.

the screenshot is from the Amazon hardcover edition, grabbed using their "Look Inside" function set to "Print book." So, apparently, the underscores are correct.

[skb]

I can remember seeing a similar thing in Jane Austen: _shire (or similar, it's been a while).

Perhaps they didn't believe in making up names, so just put in blanks?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Exactly so. It's not a 'fill in the blanks', it's just deliberate ambiguity.

Absolutely. Common in 18th C. to early 20th C.
Most common for places and years. Trollope was almost unusual in making up place names. Remember it was hard to check imaginary names really were imaginary till early 20th C. gazetteers in libraries. The Internet existed for 20 years before it could be used reliably to check (it existed for email and file transfer long before the first web sites in early 1990s).

Fill in the blanks (such as swear words) is usually * per letter, the underline or sometimes an em dash doesn't signify any number of letters, it's pure ambiguity, not even a "wildcard".

I'm thinking Robinson Crusoe, early 1719, has this convention for years.

[Katsunami]

Thanks for the information all

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Luffy

I noticed this with dates specifically. Always thought it was something the author intended.

Treasure Island opens with:

SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.

I've always understood that R.L. Stevenson wanted to keep the actual year ambiguous and so just gave it the 17 so that you know it's supposed to be set sometime in the 18th century. He names the inn "the Admiral Benbow" but not any major city that is close by. The ship leaves Bristol but that could be anywhere from a few miles to many considering how much coastline England probably has. Add to that the fact that the opening sounds like a statement being given by Jim Hawkins and it just makes sense to not state what the actual year of the 'voyage' is. We don't even learn the alleged latitude and longitude of the island since, "there is treasure there still not lifted."

[Luffy]

That's my understanding of it.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Hi,

In the older classics, I often encounter underscores where names, dates or times should have been. See an example in the screenshot.

Why is that?

I can't imagine a writer protecting the privacy of cities or people that don't even exist outside of his own book.

At the end of the page:

"The reader will understand, ere he close this narrative, my reason for concealing all clue to the district of which I write, and will perhaps thank me for refraining from any description that may tend to its discovery."