In his “Defence of Nineteenth-Century English Drama,” Michael R. Booth could confidently declare, “I am not preaching to my friends but to my enemies, and am resolved to do so unaided in this particular sermon.” I envy Professor Booth's easy task of separating friends from foes, for as a bibliographer and textual editor, I am faced with the dilemma of so many others in this field: the lines of demarcation are blurred or often nonexistent; friend and enemy are frequently one and the same. I find it unlikely that anyone to whom these remarks are addressed questions the value of nineteenth-century theatre and drama as legitimate scholarly pursuits, but I am equally confident that some—as is proportionally true in the entire community of literary scholars—have not the slightest concern for the precise and accurate transcription of the words and their forms that make up the extant theatrical texts. If these remarks sound somewhat defensive, I make no apology, for while it is probably true that “theatre scholars are not generally given to engaging in polemics,” the sad fact is that bibliographers and textual critics often are (or are forced to), thanks to the recalcitrance or shortsightedness of what seems a majority of scholars of literature and theatre. So while Professor Booth could cheerfully face his enemies “unaided,” I feel no shame in having at my back a small but valiant army of textual scholars ready to assist in defending the value of preparing authoritative critical editions—if and when they feel a work or body of works worth editing at all.