The business of figuring depends on the work of bibliographers, who piece together the story of which edition appeared when. Most important medieval works, for instance, survive in many manuscripts, no two of which are quite the same. The business of sorting out the variants among the surviving witnesses and determining which readings are likely authorial and which are corrupt can be very complicated. James Joyce’s Ulysses, for instance, has a notoriously complicated textual history, with ??? bibliography
Note: This guide is still in the early stages of development.
Three question marks mean I have to write more on the subject. Bear with me.