This dedication is a textual example of something that is commonly and intentionally left in a lot of modern scholarly editions of the book and current e-books. This is because it directly shows authorial intent which is something difficult to maintain after the author is unable to make any authorial intercessions. Shillingsburg specifically states regarding authorship against readership and editorial changes: After the creative process stopped, an author stands in the same relation ship to his work as any other editor (Shillingsburg 11). The context given to the reader through this dedication, a direct message of the author, is that his son was off at war, and more broadly he was concerned for his son’s generation. It provides the reader with historical context through which literary criticism may be applied. This is where a potential issue with the English Review’s edition arises in that it may lean to far into their morbid obsession with the war (Harding 239). This does raise some questions surrounding new editions of the book, digital or otherwise, and authoritative intent. Most editors consider an authoritative edit to suggest that the author wrote or authorised a section, however the terms authoritative and authorial intent are interchangeable (Shillingsburg 11). This highlights that the use of a modern edition of The Shadow Line may not necessarily be as beneficial to an author-based approach when applying a close reading or literary theory more broadly.

Another issue Conrad had with the English Review’s publication was in relation to just how heavily edited the grammar and punctuation was. Simmons and Stape highlight this: "The English Review text also witnesses editorial meddling. The text is much more heavily and ‘correctly’ punctuated than the manuscript and editorial hand at work" (Simmons and Stape 136). It can be seen from this the English Review may have associated ‘proper’ grammar with credibility and even class. An example of this provided by Simmons and Stape is the highlight annotation. In the original manuscript the line was "The old man gave him a look of savage spite, and said those atrocious words in deadly slow tones"(Conrad), the addition of comma between deadly and slow ultimately impacts the speed of delivery. Small changes like this were made consistently throughout the English Review edition and therefore it generally had an impact on the tone as it appeared less fast paced and dramatic.

This section of the text is an example of extract that was removed from the Metropolitan Magazine. The Shadow Line was published in the Metropolitan in 1916 as a serial. The Metropolitan illustrates Conrad’s publication persona due to the nature of the magazine presenting Conrad as a professional writer. Editorial intervention allowed for the cutting of parts from the original manuscript, which takes from The Shadow Line as a literary work and a piece of art. The manuscript acted a cognitive process through the act of writing by hand, which gives insight to the text as a piece of art. With each editorial or authorial edit, this slowly diapered. What can be seen from such a large amount of missing text is the exchange of art as a commodity. This is supported by Davis (2011): "Despite Conrad’s disclaimer, it was certainly art, in the case of his stories, to which they honed access. While Conrad would have objected strenuously to the presentation of his work in terms of how it was cut to fit an issue" (263 Davis). This idea of Conrad allowing for his work to be published in a way that has so much missing from the manuscript does highlight the monetary role of writing as a career and the higher status the Metropolitan had.

The success of The Shadow Line in periodicals such as the English Review and Metropolitan Magazine ultimately lead to its publication in book form. It was well perceived in both serialisations, which was significant considering the variety of readers present in the two different locations. The two major first book forms published were the English version, published in March 1917 and the American version published in April of the same year. Whilst editorial mediation occurred, it is observably different from the intervention seen in the periodicals. The reasoning behind this may lie in the fact that The Shadow Line had been well perceived and furthered Conrad’s credibility as an author but can also be seen in the lack of constraints even if unintentional that were provided by publishing magazines. These two publications of the text stress Conrad’s role as a writer in an artistic sense as opposed to a professional one, as exhibited by the Metropolitan. Small changes made include the spelling of words such as the one highlighted, which is different in American and British English. The example being grey to gray. "Offered Conrad’s readers a version of the novella textually close to that circulating in the English market" (Simmons and Stape 148).

An example of unintentional editing that occurs through serialisation can be seen through the physical way in which magazines present their work. Some of which highlight the contrast between Conrad’s career as a writer for the magazine market against the book market, and the impact each has on readership. For instance, the English Review as an example did not have any illustrations that were present in the Metropolitan as well as the original book form which was published between March and April in 1917 depending on location. The Metropolitan for instance has an image of a boat lost at sea during a storm, in the centre mild of the first page of the first instalment, explaining why I have placed an annotation here. This naturally draws the eyes of readers and sets the tone for the audience. The English Review in comparison only had space for advertisements, which would have led to a slightly more jarring read. This explains the relationship between unintentional editing in serialisation and readership.

This quote presents an interesting aspect of the relationship between Conrad and the English Review. An edition of The Shadow Line the English Review fostered a bourgeois tone of Victorian academic journalism, which offers the notion that the magazine and the ruling elites of the day were associated. Conrad thought that English Review’s political ideology. Prior to the creation of The Shadow Line, Conrad held a strong relationship with the English Review as they had published some of his previous work, for instance, Under Western Eyes. Despite this however, Conrad thought their political ideology had to much of an impact on the editorial intervention as Harding highlights: the decision to split the serial into no fewer than seven instalments annoyed Conrad, since he felt that slender portions of The Shadow-Line were swallowed up by what he called the English Review's "morbid" obsession with the war (Harding 239). This quote present in the English Review edition provides readers with some context into editorial intervention as a result of stakeholder influence. It may seem small, but there is a change in this quote between the original manuscript and the English Review’s edition.