Two questions on biblatex: impression vs. edition & editorial roles

Question

• A: I've come accross quite a few books which state in the frontmatter that the book which I am holding in my hands is not the first edition of 1982 but (example 1) a "new impression with new material" from 1990. Others state that they are (example 2) the "fifth impression, 2004".

How to deal wth that in biblatex? My current approach is to claim that whenever there is new material added, then it is a new edition (i.e., example 1 above would be: "2nd edition, 1990"). But if it is just an unaltered re-print then i just use the original date and add no information (i.e., example 2 above would be: "1st edition 1982" (and not 1st edition 2004!)).

What do you say?

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• B: If a book is something like "TITLE: SUBTITLE. Translation, Introduction and Annotations by XY", then I take it, that this information is not part of the title and thus does not need to be stated in my bibliography as it is on the cover of the book. And this is exactly what biblatex does: I add the name of the Translator/Annotator/Introducer in my bib-file and biblatex creates then a sentence like this "TITLE. SUBTILTE. Translated and annotated, with an introduction, by XY". (please note that the sentence on the coverpage differs from the result of biblatex).

Firstly, what do I do if it says on the Coverpage "TITLE: SUBTITLE. Translation, Introduction and Annotations and a Note on Recent Work by XY"? I know, I could add them using editorial roles (biblatex.pdf, pp.31ff), but do I have to? (remember that in the previous question I claimed that this information is not part of the title and thus need not be reproduced as stated on the cover!)

Secondly, what about titles like "A Translation of TITLE with Introduction and Commentary by XY"? (Here the information of the translator and commentator seems to be part if the title. do I have to reproduce it?) There are two possibilities:

1. Author. A Translation of TITLE with Introduction and Commentary. Translated and annotated, with an introduction, by XY. (--> not good because double information)

2. Author. TITLE. Translated and annotated, with an introduction, by XY. (--> not good because changed title!)

Answer 1

IMHO:

(A) the fact that it was not altered does not mean it's not a new edition. I'd definitely enter the year of the physical book (reprint). You may add that information to another field. Misprints, repaginations, etc. may happen. If such thing happens, you're covered. :)

(B) 'Title:Subtitle' is ok. Introductions, notes, annotations, commentaries, etc. are ancillary material (often outside the mainmatter of a book) and not part of the main work itself. I wouldn't spend much effort on reproducing it, unless it is required or you are actually quoting from two different editions and need to make that obvious.

In the case of

A Translation of TITLE with Introduction and Commentary by XY

the question is rather who is the author? If you choose the actual author of the original work, then I think 'TITLE' is what the title field should contain. Otherwise you would probably need the full 'A Translation of...'

Personally, I don't think the translator should ever be in the author field, regardless whether he/she added any ancillary material.

So these are my thoughts. Any other suggestions? :)

EDIT: Still, on a personal note, but also based on the constructive comments I received, I'd like to add a few suggestions, after looking up the biblatex documentation (Version 1.7 as of November 13, 2011), I think the original title should be in any of the cases above the value in the corresponding title field. biblatex is very generous when it comes to field types. :) So here are a few I picked, where text like 'Translation of...', 'Reprint of...' could go, (provided it's part of the title): booktileaddon, maintitleaddon, reprinttitle, titleaddon. You have also fields to store the author(s) of a foreword or annotations: annotator, foreword, introduction. In the case of translations, where it's relevant, the origlanguage field can be useful. Also, original publishing dates can be entered into origdate. If this is still not enough, and you need to save information like what the original book is, of which you have a reprint, then note might be your friend. Quoting from the biblatex documentation - page 20:

note

Miscellaneous bibliographic data which does not fit into any other field. The note field may be used to record bibliographic data in a free format. Publication facts such as “Reprint of the edition London 1831” are typical candidates for the note field. See also addendum.

Answer 2

With regard to question A:

• For the first case, I would use "1990" as year and "New impression with new material" in the edition field (biblatex will typeset this field as-is if the content is non-numeric). I would not state that the 1990 impression is the "2nd edition", as such an edition may have been published at a later date.

• For the second case, I'd use the original date but (as I consider the information "1st edition" superfluous) state no edition number at all.