Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexBell
Double, in the source I'm using from the University of Adelaide ebook library. But it's single in the Oxford Press version. I really don't think that makes much difference; to me the concern is that she was paraphrasing or giving the meaning within quotation marks.
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Actually it may make a difference:
Quote:
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Sometimes, in quoting from another, we wish for convenience to give only the substance of his meaning, but not his exact words. In such a case, we may show that the wording has been thus altered, by using only one inverted comma and one apostrophe, instead of two. Thus: The last six commandments are, 'Honor thy father and thy mother, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet.' Unless we indicate in this way, or by express remark, that the phraseology has been altered, we should in quoting be careful to give the exact words of the author, especially where the quotation is from Holy Scripture. Any alteration whatever in the words inclosed in quotation marks is regarded as dishonest, unless in some manner we distinctly indicate that such alteration has been made.
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A Manual of Composition and Rhetoric, John Seely Hart, 1871
Found with a little searching on Google Books. Of course the above is talking about non-fiction, but I think a similar principle could apply to indirect speech in a novel.
From an earlier book it seems like a lot of punctuation was originally focussed on how something was to be
read, emphasis on how many 'beats' for a comma versus a semi-colon and period* and such-like.
(*one, two and four apparently)