Initially it was decided that no single text would be privileged as the 'reading text', rather all the significant lifetime editions would be made available as high-resolution scans of the original pages (facsimiles), constituting as far as possible the texts that were read by the Victorian public. The reader would thus be able to move at will between the various editions. The inspiration behind this approach was to a great extent drawn from the bibliographic teachings of Professor Don Mckensie with whom the editor studied.
The decision to make all reading texts facsimiles was also an important decision in terms of the programming of this electronic edition, as a mode of accessing hypertext from facsimile images would need to be designed.
The Annotations as currently presented are by and large in keeping with the original scope of the project. It had been hoped that, time permitting, the functionality of the annotations would have been extended in terms of providing greater global bi-directional navigation. This facility may be provided in a later release.
The scope of the present edition whilst broadly following the above plan, accommodates certain rationalisations and changes as the project developed over time.