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An Introduction to Book History

June 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

authorship, writing, printing, publishing, and reading

Book history is one of the most recent and interesting branches of literary studies. It asks questions such as ‘What is a text?’, ‘What is a book?’, and ‘How do we read?’ The answers to these questions are much more complex than you might imagine. David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery start An Introduction to Book History by outlining the main theories and critical debates that have informed book history studies over the last hundred years.

An Introduction to Book HistoryIt’s amazing how many different fields of study this leads to – the physical production of texts; how accurate they are; what they ‘mean’; and how they are interpreted by readers. These same questions of authorship, textual integrity, and the unique nature of a work also apply in other art forms.

In cinema, music, theatre, and television there may even be interventions from other hands. But it is writing and especially printing which are at the heart of the most important intellectual developments of the modern world, and to which they devote their first two introductory chapters. Much of their argument rests on the work of previous historians of the book and literacy, writers such as Walter Ong, Henri-Jean Martin, and Elizabeth Eisenstein.

They trace the changing role of the writer – from anonymous religious copyist in the early Renaissance, and authors working under systems of courtly patronage, to the modern concept of a creative independent working in the free commercial market supplying literary products and services.

Next comes a consideration of the practical aspects of what happens after a manuscript leaves the author. Printers, book distributors, publishers, readers, and even agents. All of these, they argue, can all affect a text; and they should certainly be seen as part of the context out of which the text arises.

Then they move on to consider what has been described as the ‘missing link’ in book history – the reader. For as many theorists have argued, the text exists in a state of potential whilst it remains as words printed on a page: it only springs into a life of real meaning when it is interpreted in the reader’s mind.

Why therefore aren’t there as many different interpretations of a text as there are different readers – all equally valid? Well, the answer to this conundrum is supplied by Stanley Fish when he comes up with the notion of ‘interpretive communities’. People sharing cultural values are likely to interpret the text in the same way.

They end by looking at the future of books and readers, An interesting detail here is that despite all the prophets of doom, a greater number of books are being read than ever before – but by fewer readers.

I was hoping for a little more on the book as a physical object, and I think longer consideration of digital literature on line might have informed their arguments. But they provide a comprehensive critical introduction to the development of the book and print culture.

© Roy Johnson 2005

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David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery, An Introduction to Book History, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, pp.160, ISBN: 0415314437


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At Home with Books

June 17, 2009 by Roy Johnson

the libraries of book lovers and book collectors

I once lived in a twelve-room Victorian house filled from top to bottom with a book collection which represented forty years of reading, studying, and loving acquisition. Then a few years ago, a change in life style led me to auction off my libraries – the whole lot – a decision about which I have felt ambivalent ever since. This book helped to remove every last trace of that ambivalence. I now feel like cutting my own throat.

At Home with BooksIt’s a superbly illustrated tour of private libraries and book collections, showing how people have integrated books into their homes. Of course, not many of them are stuck for space: but even those people who live in flats and who have to carve out space from relatively modest surroundings are revealed as book lovers who respect books as objects and who wish to display their collections in a way which combines practicality with a love of good design.

But it’s also about a lot more than that: it covers all aspects of bibliographic enthusiasm. How to store your books so that you can get at them; how to organise your library; how to start a collection (and what to look for); how books should be bound; and even details such as bookplates, library ladders, and how the lighting of a library should be arranged.

The examples illustrated come from the homes of people whose entire lives revolve around the purchase, collection and love of books. People such as Seymour Durst whose five-storey house is devoted to books about the history of New York; Paul Getty who has his collection housed in a small castle; people such as the translator Richard Howard and the biographer John Richardson who actually live in the libraries they have created; and there are also some surprises such as the inclusion of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.

The one masterpiece of book storage I expected to find but didn’t was that of Sir John Soane’s house (now a museum) in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, but that is perhaps because most of the examples shown are located in the USA.

There are all sorts of beautiful oddities: a collector who recovers all his books with cream paper so that they blend in with his furniture; bookspaces arranged by interior designers such as Bill Blass and David Hicks, who has most of his book bound in red to match his trademark colour scheme.

These people take their bibliophilic really seriously. Mitchell Wolfson Jr, who lives in Miami, where the climate is inimical to book life, has both climate control and insect-free environments in his home and his museum.

The advice also includes such curiosities as how to protect books against attack by bookworms and other vermin by putting them into plastic bags and freezing them overnight; plus how to best to design private libraries, and if you are stuck for the details, where to find bookdealers, book fairs, and makers of library furnishings.

This is a beautifully produced book which will appeal to both bibliophiles and lovers of interior design. It is elegantly designed, lavishly illustrated, and it makes me realise I made a terrible mistake.

© Roy Johnson 2007

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Estelle Ellis, At Home with Books, London: Thames & Hudson, 2006, pp.248, ISBN 0500286116


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Filed Under: Architecture, Lifestyle Tagged With: Architecture, At Home with Books, Bibliography, Interior design, Lifestyle

Bookseller jargon

February 11, 2013 by Roy Johnson

understanding the language of the book trade

Bookseller jargon
When buying second-hand books you’ll often come across bookseller jargon used to describe the goods they have on offer. These descriptions appear in both printed catalogues and on web site bookstores.

The bookseller is giving an accurate description of a book and its condition, but the description often contain lots of abbreviations and specialist terms (jargon). This can sometimes appear like a secret code, and might even include abbreviations of their own bookseller jargon terms.

There is a huge specialised vocabulary involved in the book trade – terms such as ‘foxing’ to describe discoloured pages, or ‘half-binding’ to indicate that the spine will be bound in a different material, usually leather.

It’s not necessary to learn all these terms, and you can often guess at the meaning of some of them. But knowing a few of the most common expressions can help you to get a better idea of what’s on offer – and save you from making a mistake.

Knowing something about this jargon can also help you to spot bargains when buying books for as little as a penny on Internet bookshop sites.


Bookseller jargon – example I

Let’s start with a fairly straightforward example from an advert on Amazon. It’s a second-hand copy of Charles Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit. The description is quite simple, but it does introduce a few bookseller jargon terms.

Published 1935, illustrations by Phiz. Burgandy boards with gold inscription to spine, author’s signature on front. Possibly published 1935. Corners bumped and boards a little grubby. Tanning to edges, Binding is pretty tight and very little staining to pages. A few pages turned at corners. Others in series are available. Quick dispatch from Oxford based hospice charity,

author’s signature – This is very misleading, because it’s not a signature. Dickens’ signature is printed on the cover.

Corners bumped – The corners of the book covers are bent or creased with use and age.That’s fairly normal in an old book.

Tanning – The colour of the covers is fading because of exposure to light.

Binding tight – The book will not open easily and generally does not want to remain open to any given page.

pages turned at corners – A previous reader has bookmarked pages by turning down the corner of some pages.

One interesting thing to note here is that the publisher is not mentioned. In fact the publisher is Odhams, and this series was a mass-produced very cheap edition. Copies are very easy to obtain anywhere – so the price being asked for this copy (£6.85) is far too high.


Bookseller jargon – example II

Here’s a relatively simple example from AbeBooks. It’s an advert for a first edition copy of Christopher Isherwood’s novel Goodbye to Berlin. You will notice that although the advert is descriptive, a few more bookseller jargon terms creep in.

Book Description: London, The Hogarth Press, 1939, 1939. Octavo. Original rough grey cloth, titles to spine in red, top edge stained red. With the dust jacket designed by Humphrey Spender printed in black and red with a photograph of a park scene by Hans Wild. Light partial toning to endpapers, an excellent copy in the lightly rubbed dust jacket with just a couple of minor nicks and creases. First edition, first impression. Published March 1939; 3,550 copies printed.

Octavo – This is the size of the book – five inches wide and eight to nine inches tall.

toning – One of many euphemisms booksellers use to describe the discoloration of paper with age.

endpapers – The sheets of paper pasted onto the inner covers of the book

lightly rubbed – This is wear caused to the edges of the book or its dust jacket as a result of being moved on and off a shelf. Another term might be ‘scuffed’.

nicks and creases – Nicks are small cuts or abrasions, and creases are permanent folds in paper which often occur on book jackets and inner pages.

first impression – The book comes from the first batch to be printed for this title – this is a guarantee of the book’s rarity.

As you can tell from this, book collectors are very concerned about the physical condition of the books they buy — with good reason. This one was for sale for £3,750.00


Bookseller jargon – example III

Here is a much more detailed and complex example. This an advert for a set of volumes which are a genuine rarity and an antiquity from the eighteenth century essayists Addison and Steele.

Addison, Johseph; Steele, Sir Richard. THE SPECTATOR. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper 1749.
8 vols. T.p. devices., engraved frontiss., dec. head and tail pieces. Some sporadic very light browning, ex-libris Sir Thomas Miller Bt. and with sm. ownership signature, top edge of a couple of leaves in vol. 4 sl. chipped, slightly rubbed gilt filleted edges with some sl. wear to corners, full speckled calf with some minor light staining to a couple of boards, raised bands dec. gilt compartments and leather title labels to rubbed and slightly chipped spines..
£125.00

Eight volumes – This is a genuine eighteenth-centry collection for only £120.00 – which seems good value to me.

T.p. devices – Title page with devices. This page lists the title and any subtitle; the author; the publisher; and the printer.

engraved frontiss – This is an engraved illustration at the beginning of the book, usually facing the title page.

dec. head and tail pieces – A decorative ornament found at the start of a chapter or a division in a book (very common in the eighteenth century).

very light browning – This is signs of discolouration in the paper – an indication of its age.

ex-libris – A Latin term which means ‘from the library of’. This is often indicated by a small label pasted into the book’s inside cover.

sm. ownership signature – A small signature of a (or the) previous owner.

sl. chipped – Slightly chipped. This usually means that small parts of the page are missing or frayed.

gilt filleted edges – Fillets are decorative lines impressed on a book cover. These have been rubbed, and perhaps lost some of the gilding.

sl. wear to corners – Worn perhaps as the books have been taken on and off shelves.

full speckled calf – The volumes have been bound in leather – and ‘speckled’ means the calf’s hide has been treated to create small dark spots or specks.

boards – This is the heavy-duty cardboard used in the construction of the book covers.

slightly chipped spines – Futher signs of use and age. This is to be expected on something three centuries old.


Red button A full glossary of bookseller jargon

Red button Common abbreviations used by booksellers

Red button Book formats and sizes

© Roy Johnson 2013


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Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, How-to guides, Literary Studies, Literary studies Tagged With: antiquarian books, Bibliography, buying books, Literary studies, Media, second-hand books

Copy Editing

May 31, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a handbook for editors, authors, and publishers

Judith Butcher’s Copy Editing is now firmly established as the UK classic reference guide for editors and others involved in preparing text for publication. It is written from the perspective of a professional copy-editor, and covers just about everything you would need to know in preparing any sort of text for publication. It deals with all the details of preparing a typescript for setting, house styles and consistency, reading and correcting proofs, and how to present indexes and bibliographies.

Copy-Editing - The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers Every suggestion is scrupulously illustrated without being pedantic, and there is a very helpful degree of cross-referencing. I originally bought my own copy of this book to sort out the finer points of bibliographic referencing for academic writing – and I’ve been using it regularly ever since. The book itself is almost a tutorial on the very principles it illustrates, and it is a very handsomely produced and elegantly designed publication. You will learn a lot on the presentation of text just from turning the pages.

It contains explanations of every part of a book – from details such as preliminary matter, frontispiece, title page, and content, through to lists of tables and illustrations, acknowledgements, bibliographies, notes, and indexes. And it covers many types of printed book – from conventional prose, through books on mathematics, music, books with tables and illustrations, and books set in foreign languages.

The latest edition also deals with issues of copyright, the conventions of presenting text in specialist subjects, guidance on digital coding and publishing in other media such as e-books, and a chapter devoted to on-screen copy-editing.

It has also been updated to take account of modern typesetting and printing technology. This is a good investment for writers who are serious about preparing their work for publication, and an excellent source of reference when you get stuck with the minutiae of bibliographies and typographic presentation. It’s also now available in paperback.

© Roy Johnson 2007

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Judith Butcher, Copy-Editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers, 4th edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp.558, ISBN: 0521847133


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DH Lawrence biographies and bibliographies

September 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

arranged in chronological order of publication

DH Lawrence biographies
1. D.H.Lawrence – Bibliographies, Handbooks, Journals

Warren Roberts, A Bibliography of D.H. Lawrence, 1963; revised. [The revised edition of this important Lawrence bibliography includes a section on the criticism].

Graham Holderness, Who’s Who in D.H. Lawrence, 1976.

Keith Sagar, D.H.Lawrence: A Calendar of His Works, 1979.

Keith Sagar, A D.H.Lawrence Handbook, 1982.

James C Cowan, D.H.Lawrence: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him, Vol I (1909-60) 1982; Vol II (1961-75) 1985.

Thomas Jackson Rice, D.H.Lawrence: A Guide to Research, 1983.

The D H Lawrence Review, founded in 1968 by James C Cowan at the University of Delaware, is published three times a year. DHLR includes regular bibliographical updates as well as essays on a wide range of subjects to do with Lawrence, and reviews of recent work. Etudes Laurentiennes, founded in 1985, is published by the University of Paris X [Nanterre].


The Complete Critical Guide to D.H.LawrenceThe Complete Critical Guide to D. H. Lawrence is a good introduction to Lawrence criticism. Includes a potted biography of Lawrence, an outline of the stories, novels, plays, and poetry, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from contemporaries T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Lawrence journals.


2. Select Biography

R. West, D.H. Lawrence, London: Martin Secker, 1930.

A. Lawrence, Young Lorenzo: Early Life of D.H.Lawrence, Containing Hitherto Unpublished Letters and Articles and reproductions of Pictures, Florence: G. Orioli, 1931.

A. Lawrence and S.G. Gelder, Young Lorenzo: Early Life of D.H.Lawrence, Containing Hitherto Unpublished Letters and Articles and reproductions of Pictures, London: Martin Secker, 1932.

John Middleton Murry, Son of Woman: The Story of D.H.Lawrence, London: Jonathan Cape, 1931.

M. Dodge Luhan, Loenzo in Taos, New York: Knopf, 1932.

Aldous Huxley (ed), The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, London: Heinemann, 1932.

John Middleton Murry, Reminiscences of D.H. Lawrence, London: Jonathan Cape, 1933.

John Middleton Murry, Between Two Worlds: An Autobiography, London: Jonathan Cape, 1935.

D. Brett, Lawrence and Brett: A Friendship, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1933.

Catherine Carswell, The Savage Pilgrimage: A Narrative of D.H.Lawrence, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932.

Frieda Lawrence, Not I, But the Wind…, New York: Viking Press, 1934.

E.T. [Jessie Chambers], D.H. Lawrence: A Personal Record, London: Cape, 1935.

K. Merrild, A Poet and Two Painters, London: Routledge, 1938.

Frieda Lawrence, The Memoirs and Correspondence [ed Tedlock] 1964.

E. Brewster and A. Brewster, D.H. Lawrence: reminiscences and correspondence, London: Secker, 1934.

Piero Nardi, La Vita di D.H.Lawrence, 1947. [The first full biography of DHL]

Richard Aldington, D.H.Lawrence: Portrait of a Genius, But…, London: Heinemann, 1950.

Harry T. Moore, The Life and Works of D.H. Lawrence, London: Unwin Books, 1951.

E. Nehls (ed), D.H. Lawrence: A Composite Biography, 3 vols, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957.

Harry T. Moore, A D.H. Lawrence Miscellany, London: Heinemann, 1961.

Harry T. Moore (ed), The Collected Letters of D.H. Lawrence, London: Heinemann, 1962.

Harry T. Moore, The Priest of Love, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1954, revised 1974.

H.D. [Hilda Doolittle], Bid Me To Live, New York: Grove Press, 1960.

E.W. Tedlock Jr (ed), Frieda Lawrence: the Memoirs and Correspondence, London: Heinemann, 1961.

H. Corke, D.H. Lawrence: The Croydon Years, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965.

Harry T. Moore and Warren Roberts, D.H.Lawrence and his World [illustrated] 1966.

Edward Nehls (ed), D.H.Lawrence: A Composite Biography (3 vols, 1957-9).

Emile Delavenay, [trans. K.M. Delavenay] D.H.Lawrence: The Man and His Work. The Formative Years: [1885-1919], London: Heinemann, 1972.

Robert Lucas, Frieda Lawrence: The Story of Frieda von Richtofen and D.H.Lawrence, 1973.

H. Corke, In Our Infancy: An Autobiography Part I: 1882-1912, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Paul Delany, D.H.Lawrence’s Nightmare: The Writer and his Circle in the Years of the Great War, Hassocks: Harvester, 1979.

Keith Sagar, The Life of D.H.Lawrence: An Illustrated Biography, 1980.

G. Neville (ed. C. Baron), A Memoir of D.H. Lawrence: (The Betrayal), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Anthony Burgess, Flame Into Being: The Life and Works of D.H.Lawrence, 1985.

Keith Sagar, D.H.Lawrence: Life Into Art, 1985.

John Worthen, D.H.Lawrence: A Literary Life, 1989.

Jeffrey Meyers, D.H.Lawrence: A Biography, 1990.

John Worthen, D.H.Lawrence: The Early Years: 1885-1912: The Cambridge Biography of D.H. Lawrence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Elaine Feinstein, Lawrence’s Women: The Intimate Life of D.H. Lawrence, London: Harper Collins, 1993.

Peter Preston, A D.H.Lawrence Chronology, 1994.

R. Jackson, Frieda Lawrence, Including ‘Not I, But the Wind’ and other Autobiographical Writings, London: Pandora, 1994.

Brenda Maddox, The Married Man: A Biography of D.H.Lawrence, London: Sinclair Stevenson, 1994.

Janet Byrne, A Genius for Living: A Biography of Frieda Lawrence, London: Bloomsbury, 1995.

M. Kinkead-Weekes, D.H.Lawrence: Triumph to Exile: 1912-1922, The Cambridge Biography of D.H.Lawrence 1885-1930, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

J.T. Boulton (ed), The Selected Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

D. Ellis, D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game 1922-1930, The Cambridge Biography of D.H.Lawrence 1885-1930, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

© Roy Johnson 2004 with thanks to Damian Grant


D.H.Lawrence – web links

D.H.Lawrence web links D.H.Lawrence at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews, study guides, videos, bibliographies, critical studies, and web links.

Project Gutenberg D.H.Lawrence at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts of the novels, stories, travel writing, and poetry – available in a variety of formats.

Wikipedia D.H.Lawrence at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, publishing history, the Lady Chatterley trial, critical reputation, bibliography, archives, and web links.

Film adaptations D.H.Lawrence at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of Lawrence’s work for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production, box office, trivia, and even quizzes.

D.H.Lawrence D.H.Lawrence archive at the University of Nottingham
Biography, further reading, textual genetics, frequently asked questions, his local reputation, research centre, bibliographies, and lists of holdings.

Red button D.H.Lawrence and Eastwood
Nottinhamshire local enthusiast web site featuring biography, historical and recent photographs of the Eastwood area and places associated with Lawrence.

D.H.Lawrence The World of D.H.Lawrence
Yet another University of Nottingham web site featuring biography, interactive timeline, maps, virtual tour, photographs, and web links.

Red buttonD.H.Lawrence Heritage
Local authority style web site, with maps, educational centre, and details of lectures, visits, and forthcoming events.


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Electronic Texts – a bibliographic essay

September 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

text, editing, and bibliography in the electronic age

Electronic textuality is a relatively recent concept, yet one that has already had a significant impact upon the practice of scholarly editing. Scholars have debated the subject of textual bibliography and the issue of copy-text throughout the twentieth-century without, it seems, reaching any firm conclusions. The term ‘copy-text’ was first coined by Ronald McKerrow almost one hundred years ago (McKerrow and Nash 1904) but there still remains disagreement about how a text can or should be established. The arrival of electronic texts make this problem even more complex.

Advances in information technology have meant that scholars now have access to new and ever more sophisticated tools to assist them in the preparation of traditional codex editions and to aid textual analysis. Increasingly however, some editors are choosing to exploit the potential of digitised material and the advantages of hypertext to produce texts in an electronic format in either editions or archives. This raises various issues including the role of the editor and the relationship of the reader to the text.

One of the most influential and oft quoted theses on the subject of textual scholarship and one which has provoked a significant amount of debate, is W. W. Greg’s paper entitled ‘The Rationale of Copy-Text’ (1950). In this article, Greg highlights the difficulties of the prevailing editorial practice of attempting to select whichever extant text is the closest to the words that an author originally wrote and using this as the copy-text. In the case of printed books, this is generally considered the first edition, but Greg argues that an over-reliance on this one text, to the exclusion of all others, is problematic.

He advocates that a distinction be made between ‘substantive’ and ‘accidental’ readings of a text and suggests that the two should be treated differently. (He uses these terms to distinguish between readings that affect the meaning and readings that only affect the formal presentation of a text.) Greg asserts that it is only when dealing with accidentals that editors should adhere rigidly to their chosen copy-text and that in the case of possible variants in substantive readings there is a case to be made for exercising editorial choice and judgement. He argues that it is only through being allowed to exercise judgement that editors can be freed from what he terms ‘the tyranny of the copy-text’ (p. 26).

This argument is taken up and developed by Fredson Bowers (1964; 1970). Bowers takes issue with some of the finer points of Greg’s argument, but agrees that whilst rules and theories are necessary, the very nature of editing means that a certain amount of editorial judgement will always be needed. G. Thomas Tanselle (1975) examines the arguments of both scholars, expands them and looks at how their work and theories have affected the practice of scholarly editing. Greg, Bowers, Tanselle and others have slight differences of emphasis. They are however, all in broad agreement with the principle of synthesizing two or more variant editions into one text that represents as closely as possible an author’s intention.

The debate about copy-text and its role in scholarly editing rests largely on the status of authorial intention and the extent to which this is possible to discern and represent in a text. Michael Foucault, in his paper entitled ‘What is an author?’ (1984), argues that even when there is little question about the identity of author of a text, there remains the problem of determining whether everything that was written or left behind by him should be considered part of a work. Do notes in a margin represent an authorial addition or amendment, or did the author simply scribble in the margins a sudden thought that he wanted to remember and refer to later? Such issues remain a subject of debate and are some of the many problems with which editors are faced.

Textual ScholarshipThe practice of editing will always generate problems that scholars need to address and this is the basis for David Greetham (1994) and Peter Robinson’s (1997) assertions that to a certain extent, all editing must be seen as conjectural. However, in his examination of the history of textual criticism, Greetham finds that there has been a fluctuation between two equally extreme schools of thought.

The first, he suggests, maintains that a correct reading of a text is discoverable ‘given enough information about the texts and enough intelligence and inspiration on the part of the editor’ (p. 352). The opposing position is one that claims that any speculation on the part of an editor is likely to result in a move away from authorial intention. Because of this, scholars that hold this belief argue that documental evidence should be given priority over editorial judgement and wherever possible this documental evidence should be in the form of only one document – that chosen as the copy-text.

Yet scholars have found that it is sometimes impossible to establish one ‘correct’ text. Jerome McGann (1983; 1996; 1997) believes the very notion to be a falsity and Peter Donaldson (1997) argues that traditional scholarly editions can be misleading as their very nature suggests that a text is fixed and authoritative when the reality is often very different.

Taking the plays of Shakespeare as an example, he suggests that the collaborative nature of life surrounding the London theatres in the Renaissance combined with the fact that the author did not intend his work to be published, means that variants cannot and should not be ignored. Moreover, he contends, in some cases a single original text may never have existed. Donaldson argues that technology can be used to create new forms of text that incorporate variants in a way that is not practical in a codex edition. Donaldson is himself involved in a project that seeks to do this and he refers to his own experiences in assembling an electronic archive of the works of Shakespeare.

Electronic texts provide some solutions to the problems of editing, but they also raise new issues and opinions are divided about the way in which they can best be used. Some scholars welcome digital texts as a tool to aid the preparation and production of traditional scholarly editions whilst others prefer to look to electronic textuality as a medium for the publication of a different type of edition – an electronic edition.

Several authors (Donaldson 1997; Greetham 1997; Hockey 2000; Robinson 1997) examine the way in which new developments in information technology affect the traditional process of scholarly editing. Robinson for example, examines the analytic functions of electronic text and provides examples of instances in which computer aided collation has assisted in the preparation of scholarly editions. He cites his own experiences in the production of Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue on CD-ROM and explains how he used the particular techniques of computerised cladistic analysis as a method of textual criticism. Further information about computerized collation can be found in Hockey (1980) and Robinson (1994).

(Cladistic analysis has been developed from systematic biology. Susan Hockey (2000) describes it as ‘software that takes a collection of data and attempts to produce the trees of descent or history for which the fewest changes are required, basing this on comparisons between the descendents’. Cladistics is particularly useful in cases where manuscripts are lost or damaged.)

In addition however, Greetham (1994) and Robinson (1993; 1997) discuss the way in which, in an electronic edition, hypertext can be used to solve the problem of textual variants. The term ‘hypertext’ was coined in the 1960s by Ted Nelson (Landow 1992) and it refers to a means of linking documents or sections of documents and allowing a reader to navigate his or her own way through a series of paths in a non-linear way. Bolter (1991), Landow (1992) and McGann (1997) all write in detail about the technology behind hypertext, its functions and the theories that surround it.

Greetham suggests that decisions that were once the responsibility of the editor can be largely transferred to the reader as hypertext allows all possible variants to be included and linked in an electronic edition. This means that editors do not have to wrestle with the problem of authorial intention or give priority to one text but can incorporate several variants, allowing readers to select the most appropriate text for their particular needs.

Electronic TextsThis type of editing is, as Greetham argues, distinct from the methods of either establishing a text or accurately reproducing a particular version of a work in a critical edition. The desired result with electronic editing is not, according to McGann (1983) and others, a single conflated text as advocated by the Greg / Bowers school of editing but one containing such multiple variants.

McGann believes that this type of edition frees the reader from the controlling influence of editors, and George Landow (1992) suggests that it facilitates a greater degree of interaction between the reader and the text.

Kathryn Sutherland (1997) however, warns that this type of text places greater demands on a reader than a traditional codex edition. A hypertext edition that contains multiple variants necessarily requires a reader to select material, choose from amongst the possible variants and, therefore, exercise discrimination. She also points out, in an allusion to Barthesian distinctions, that a hypertext edition offering choice amongst variants is, in effect, offering the reader the ‘disassembled texts’ rather than the ‘reassembled work’ (p. 9).

McGann (1996; 1997) suggests that scholarly editions in codex form have limitations because their structure is too close to that of the material that they analyse. He asserts that hypermedia projects such as the Rossetti Hypermedia Archive with which he is involved, offer a different type of focus that does not rely on one central document. He argues that hyperediting allows for greater freedom and has the added advantage of giving readers access to more than just the semantic content of a primary text.

Moreover, McGann believes that hypertext is functioning at its optimum level when it is used to create hypermedia editions that incorporate visual and audio documents. Robinson (1997) however, warns that editors working on major electronic editions are producing material that will not be used to its full potential until there are further developments in the field of textual encoding and software that is more widely available.

P. Aaron Potter (c1997) takes issue with McGann and Landow’s ideas. He argues that a Web page editor controls the material that appears on the screen to an even greater extent than does an editor working on a traditional codex edition. A hypertext document is not a non-sequential document because an editor has inserted links and chosen what he considers the most suitable places for those links to be. A reader can, therefore, only navigate to a part of a document to which an editor has chosen to offer a path.

Hypertext links, asserts Potter, are ‘no more transparent that any reasonable index’ and whilst offering a choice amongst variants, and allowing readers to share some of the editorial functions, electronic editions are far from being either authorless or editorless texts. Moreover, her refers to Foucault’s theories and suggests that, as is often the case, hypertext is an example of a concept that is purporting to offer greater freedom, when in reality it is just more successful at hiding the mechanisms by which it exerts control – in this instance, control of a reader.

Susan Hockey (2000) warns that whilst editors working on electronic editions are freed from many of the limitations of printed books, and the need to rely on one particular text or reading, there is a danger of such projects becoming overly ambitious. She asserts that the inclusion of too much source material can result in editions that have little scholarly value. She maintains that source material should not replace the critical material that makes scholarly editions valuable. Similarly, Sutherland (1997) suggests that a balance needs to be struck between the quantity and the quality of the material that electronic editors choose to include. Claire Lamont (1997) examines the specific problems of annotation and compares how they differ in a codex and electronic edition. Hypertext provides the promise of annotations which are easier to access and which conceivably, can contain greater quantities of material.

Electronic TextsLamont draws attention to the fact that hypertext editions also have the advantage over traditional editions because they can be updated whenever necessary without the need to prepare an entire new edition and without the cost and time that this inevitably involves. However, rather than solving the problems of annotation such as where, what, and how much to annotate, Lamont concludes that hypertext has simply resulted in ‘another arena in which the debate may continue’ (p. 63). Sutherland (1997) sums up the feelings of many less fervent supporters of electronic textuality by suggesting that the electronic environment is perhaps best thought of as ‘a set of supplementary possibilities’ (p. 7). These possibilities will be debated by editors, theorists and scholars in a comparable way to which they have debated and continue to consider the medium of the book.

Contrary to the optimistic note struck by writers such as McGann (1997), Landow (1992), Lanham (1993) and others concerning an electronic text’s facility to empower the reader, Sven Birkerts (1995) expresses concern at the effect of electronic texts in a book that is pessimistically entitled The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. Birkerts suggests that methods of electronic storage and retrieval have a detrimental effect upon a reader’s acquisition of knowledge. Information in an electronic medium, he believes, remains external – something to be stored and manipulated rather than absorbed.

Without claiming to support Birkerts’ theories, Sutherland (1997) suggests that if they do prove to be correct then the implications will be wide-ranging. The scholar who works for years seeking to become and expert in his chosen field for example, could conceivably be transformed by the computer into little more than a technician – able to locate and manipulate information, but without having any real understanding of it.

Rapid advances in information technology are increasingly becoming the source of debate amongst scholars who seek to determine both the best way of taking advantage of technology and the implications of so doing. Greetham (1997) rightly points out that digitisation is only one small stage in the evolution of texts and Sutherland (1997) remarks that computers, like books, are simply ‘containers of knowledge, information [and] ideas’ (p. 8).

However, as electronic textuality continues to emerge as a force to which the academic community will have to adapt there will, no doubt, be a continued explosion in the literature that addresses the issues that it raises. Jerome McGann is seen by more conservative scholars as too messianic in his endorsement of the electronic medium and it is possible that some of his predictions may well prove to have been extreme. However, in his claim that hyperediting is ‘what scholars will be doing for a long time’ (1997), it is likely that he will, ultimately, be proved right.

© Kathryn Abram 2002


Bibliography

Birkerts, Sven. 1995. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

Bolter, Jay David. 2001. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, N.J. : L. Erlbaum Associates.

Bowers, Fredson. 1964. Bibliography and Textual Criticism: The Lyell Lectures, Oxford, Trinity Term 1959. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

______. 1970. ‘Greg’s “Rationale of Copy-Text” Revisited’. Studies in Bibliography Volume 31 , pp. 90-161.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. 1996. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue on CD-ROM. ed. Peter M. W. Robinson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Donaldson, Peter. 1997. ‘Digital Archive as Expanded Text: Shakespeare and Electronic Textuality’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 173-97. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1984. ‘What is an author?’, in The Foucault Reader. ed. Paul Rabinow, translated by Josue V. Harari, pp. 101-20. New York: Pantheon Books.

Greetham, D. C. 1994. Textual Scholarship: An Introduction. New York and London: Garland.

______. 1997. ‘Coda: Is It Morphin Time?’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 199-226. Oxford: Clarendon Press .

Greg, W. W. 1950. ‘The Rationale of Copy-Text’. Studies in Bibliography Vol. 3 (1950-1951), pp. 19-36.

Hockey, Susan M. 1980. A Guide to Computer Applications in the Humanities. London: Duckworth.

______. 2000. Electronic Texts in the Humanities: Principles and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lamont, Claire. 1997. ‘Annotating a Text: Literary Theory and Electronic Hypertext’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 47-66. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Landow, George P. 1992. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Lanham, Richard A. 1993. The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press.

McGann, Jerome J. 1983. A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism. Charlottesville: University of Chicago Press.

______. 1996. ‘Radiant Textuality’. Accessed on 19 February 2002.

______. 1997. ‘The Rationale of Hypertext’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 19-47. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

______. 1997. ‘The Rossetti Hypermedia Archive’ [Web page]. Accessed on 19 March 2002.

McKerrow, Ronald B., and Thomas Nash. 1904. The Works of Thomas Nashe. Vol. 1. London: A.H. Bullen.

Potter, P. Aaron. c1997. ‘Centripetal Textuality’. Accessed on 19 February 2002.

Robinson, Peter M. W. 1993. The Digitization of Primary Textual Sources. Oxford: Office for Humanities Communication Publications.

______. 1994. ‘Collate: A Program for Interactive Collation of Large Textual Traditions’, in Research in Humanities Computing 3. eds. Susan Hockey, and N. Ide, pp. 32-45. Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press.

______. 1997. ‘New Directions in Critical Editing’, in Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. ed. Kathryn Sutherland, pp. 145-71. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sutherland, Kathryn, ed. 1997. Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Tanselle, G. Thomas. 1975. ‘Greg’s Theory of Copy-Text and the Editing of American Literature’. Studies in Bibliography Volume 28, pp. 167-231.

 


Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature Tagged With: Bibliography, David Greetham, Electronic Texts, Kathryn Sutherland, Literary studies, Susan Hockey, Technology, textual scholarship

Franz Kafka a bibliography

June 30, 2010 by Roy Johnson

selected literary criticism and commentary

Franz Kafka a bibliography is a short selection of further reading related to Kafka, his major works, and some of the recent criticism.

Franz Kafka Jeremy Adler, Franz Kafka (Overlook Illustrated Lives), Gerald Duckworth, 2004.

Franz Kafka Mark Anderson. Kafka’s Clothes: Ornament and Aestheticism in the Habsburg Fin de Siecle, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992

Franz Kafka Louis Begley, The Tremendous Words I have Inside my Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay, Atlas Illustrated editions, 2008.

Franz Kafka Harold Bloom, Franz Kafka (Bloom’s Major Novelists), Chelsea House Publishers, 2003.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Elizabeth Boa, Kafka: Gender, Class, and Race in the Letters and Fictions, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Max Brod, Franz Kafka: A Biography, Da Capo Press, 1995.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Max Brod (ed), The Diaries of Franz Kafka, Schoken Books, 1988.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Elias Canetti, Kafka’s Other Trial: The Letters to Felice, Schocken Books, 1989.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Stanley Corngold, Lambent Traces: Franz Kafka, Princeton University Press, 2006.

Franz Kafka a bibliography W.J. Dodd (ed), Kafka: The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle, London: Longman, 1995.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Carolin Duttlinger, Kafka and Photography, Oxford: Oxford Universit Press, 2007.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Angel Flores (ed), The Kafka Debate, New York: Gordian Press, 1977.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Sander Gilman, Franz Kafka (Critical Lives), Reaktion Books, 2007.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Sander Gilman, Franz Kafka: The Jewish Patient, London: Routledge, 1995.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Richard T. Gray (ed), A Franz Kafka Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press, 2005.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Ronald Gray, Kafka: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice Hall, 1962.

Franz Kafka a bibliography James Hawes, Excavating Kafka, Quercus Publishing, 2010

Franz Kafka a bibliography Ronald Hayman, A Biography of Kafka, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks, Exact Change, 1998.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Franz Kafka, The Trial (Complete Audiobooks), Naxos Audiobooks, 2007.

Franz Kafka a bibliography David Zane Mairowitz, Introducing Kafka, Icon Books, 2007.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Julian Preece (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Kafka, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Ronald Spiers, and Beatrice Sandberg, Franz Kafka, London: Macmillan, 1997.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Daryl Sharp, The Secret Raven: Conflict and Transformation in the Life of Franz Kafka, Inner City Books, 1982.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Walter H. Sokel, The Myth of Power and the Self: Essays on Franz Kafka, Wayne State University Press, 2001.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Ritchie Robertson, Kafka: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Ritchie Robertson, Kafka: Judaism, Politics, and Literature, Clarendon Press, 1987.

Franz Kafka a bibliography James Rolleston (ed), A Companion to the Works of Franz Kafka, Camden House, 2006.

Franz Kafka a bibliography Michael Wood, Franz Kafka (Writers and Their Work), Northcote House, 1998.


KafkaThe Cambridge Companion to Kafka offers a comprehensive account of his life and work, providing a rounded contemporary appraisal of Central Europe’s most distinctive Modernist. Contributions cover all the key texts, and discuss Kafka’s writing in a variety of critical contexts such as feminism, deconstruction, psycho-analysis, Marxism, and Jewish studies. Other chapters discuss his impact on popular culture and film. The essays are well supported by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading, and will be of interest to students of Comparative Literature.


Franz Kafka – web links

Kafka Franz Kafka at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews and study guides on the major works, video presentations and documentaries, adaptations for cinema and television, and links to Kafka archives.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats – in both English and German.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, survey of the stories and novels, publishing history, translations, critical interpretation, and extensive bibliographies.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production features, box office, film reviews, and even quizzes.

Franz Kafka video Kafka in Love
Video photomontage featuring portraits of Kafka, his friends and family, and locations in Prague – with a rather schmaltzy soundtrack in Yiddish and English.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka-Metamorphosis
A public Wiki dedicated to Kafka and his work, featuring the short stories, interpretations, and further web links.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka Society of America
Academic group with annual meetings and publications. Also features links to other Kafka-related sites

Franz Kafka web links Oxford Kafka Research Centre
Academic group based at Oxford University that tracks current research and meetings. [Doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2012.]

Franz Kafka web links The Kafka Project
Critical editions and translations of Kafka’s work in several languages, plus articles, literary criticism, bibliographies.

Franz Kafka Tribute to Franz Kafka
Individual fan site (created by ‘Herzogbr’) featuring a collection of texts, reviews, and enthusiast essays. Badly in need of updating, but contains some interesting gems.

Kafka photos Finding Kafka in Prague
Quirky compilation of photos locating Kafka in his home town – with surrealist additions and weird sound track.

Red button Who Owns Kafka?
Essay by Judith Butler from the London Review of Books on the contentious issues of ownership of Kafka’s manuscripts where they are currently held in Israel – complete with podcast.

Red button The Kafka Archive – latest news
Guardian newspaper report on the suitcase full of Kafka and Max Brod’s papers released by Israeli library.

Red button Franz Kafka: an illustrated life
Book review of a charming short biography with some unusual period photos of Kafka and Prague.

© Roy Johnson 2010


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Filed Under: Franz Kafka Tagged With: Bibliography, Franz Kafka, Literary studies, Modernism, The novel

How to create a bibliography

November 16, 2009 by Roy Johnson

the basic conventions for academic writing

1. bibliographyAt the end of any scholarly writing (an essay, report, or dissertation) you should offer a list of any works you have consulted or from which you have quoted. This list is called a bibliography – literally, a list of books or sources.

2. The traditional way of showing this information is to use the following sequence:

Author – Title – Publisher – Date

Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.

3. In some cases, you might be expected to present this information with the author’s surname listed first – as follows:

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.

4. If you are using the Harvard system of notation, the date follows the author’s name – thus:

Eagleton, T. (1983), Literary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell

5. Notice that book titles are shown in italics.

6. If you are using a ‘standard’ text, give the editor’s name first, as in the following examples:

Mark Amory (ed), The Letters of Evelyn Waugh, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980.

Frank Kermode (ed), The Tempest, Methuen, 1954.

7. List the items of a bibliography in alphabetical order according to author’s or the editor’s surname.

8. Don’t list works you have not consulted or from which you have not quoted. Doing this creates the impression that you are trying to claim credit for work you have not actually done.

9. You might find that your bibliography repeats much of the information given in your endnotes or footnotes. Don’t worry about this: these two separate lists have different functions. In addition, your bibliography may contain works from which you have not directly quoted.

10. Here’s an extract from the bibliography of a second year undergraduate essay on the sociology of domestic labour:

Bibliography

Beeton, I., Beeton’s Book of Household Management, Chancellor Press, 1991.

Best, G., Mid-Victorian Britain 1851-75, Fontana, 1979.

Branca, P., Silent Sisterhood, Croom Helm, 1975.

Burman, S. (ed), Fit Work for Women, Croom Helm, 1979.

Burnett, J., Useful Toil, Allen Lane, 1974.

Darwin, E., ‘Domestic Service’, The Nineteenth Century, Vol.28, August 1890.

Davidoff, L., The Best Circles, Croom Helm, 1973.

Davidoff, L., ‘Mastered for Life: Servant and Wife in Victorian and Edwardian England’, Journal of Economic and Social History, Vol.7, 1974.

The Harvard System

11. Some subjects adopt the Author-Date method of referencing – which is also known as the Harvard System. Full details of the texts you have quoted are placed in the bibliography in the following order:

Author – Date – Title – Place – Publisher

Smith, John. (1988) The Weavers’ Revolt, Chicago, Blackbarrow Press.

12. The list of texts which appears at the end of your essay should be arranged in alphabetical order of the author’s surname. The list differs from a traditional bibliography in that the date of publication follows the author’s name.

So – the same bibliography shown above would appear as follows in Harvard style:

Bibliography

Beeton, I. 1991 Beeton’s Book of Household Management, Chancellor Press.

Best, G. 1979 Mid-Victorian Britain 1851-75, Fontana.

Burman, S. 1979 (ed), Fit Work for Women, Croom Helm.

Darwin, E. 1890 ‘Domestic Service’, The Nineteenth Century, Vol.28, August.

Davidoff, L. 1973 The Best Circles, Croom Helm.

Davidoff, L. 1974 ‘Mastered for Life: Servant and Wife in Victorian and Edwardian England’, Journal of Social History, Vol.7.

Davidoff, L. 1987 and Hall, C., Family Fortunes, Hutchinson.

[…and so on]

bibliography Full details of Harvard style referencing.

© Roy Johnson 2009


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Filed Under: 19C Literature, 20C Literature, How-to guides, Literary studies, Study Skills Tagged With: Academic writing, Bibliography, Harvard style referencing, Referencing, Study skills, Writing skills

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography

June 30, 2010 by Roy Johnson

selected literary criticism and commentary

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography Amar Acheraiou, Joseph Conrad and the Reader, London: Macmillan, 2009.

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography Jacques Berthoud, Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography Muriel Bradbrook, Joseph Conrad: Poland’s English Genius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography Harold Bloom (ed), Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Martin Bock and Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad and Psychological Medicine, Texas Tech Press, 2002.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Hillel M. Daleski, Joseph Conrad: The Way of Dispossession, London: Faber, 1977

Joseph Conrad bibliography Stephen Donovan, Joseph Conrad and Popular Culture, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Wilfred S. Dowden, Joseph Conrad: The Imagined Style, Vanderbilt University Press, 1970.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Aaron Fogel, Coercion to Speak: Conrad’s Poetics of Dialogue, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Adam Gillon and Raymond Brebach, Joseph Conrad: Comparative Essays, Texas Tech Press, 1993.

Joseph Conrad bibliography John Dozier Gordon, Joseph Conrad: The Making of a Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Albert J. Guerard, Conrad the Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Richard J. Hand, The Theatre of Joseph Conrad: Reconstructed Fictions, London: Macmillan, 2005.

Joseph Conrad bibliography G.G. Harpham, One of Us: Mastery of Joseph Conrad, Chicago University Press, 1997..

Joseph Conrad bibliography Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness, London: Edward Arnold, 1979.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment, London: Edward Arnold, 1990.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Jeremy Hawthorn, Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad, London: Continuum, 2007.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Owen Knowles, The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Jakob Lothe, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Gustav Morf, The Polish Shades and Ghosts of Joseph Conrad, New York: Astra, 1976.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Ross Murfin, Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties, Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1985.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Jeffery Myers, Joseph Conrad: A Biography, Cooper Square Publishers, 2001.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Zdzislaw Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, Camden House, 2007.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Lindsay Newman and Yves Hervouet, The French Face of Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Kieron O’Hara, Joseph Conrad Today, Imprint Academic, 2007.

Joseph Conrad bibliography George A. Panichas, Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision, Mercer University Press, 2005.

Joseph Conrad bibliography John G. Peters, The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Joseph Conrad bibliography James Phelan, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Richard J. Ruppel, Homosexuality in the Life and Work of Joseph Conrad: Love Between the Lines, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Edward Said, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Norman Sherry, Joseph Conrad: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1997.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad: (Critical Issues), London: Macmillan, 2006.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad in Context, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Joseph Conrad bibliography J.H. Stape, The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Joseph Conrad bibliography John Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, Arrow Books, 2008.

Peter Villiers, Joseph Conrad: Master Mariner, Seafarer Books, 2006.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Ian Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Cedric Watts, Joseph Conrad: (Writers and their Work), London: Northcote House, 1994.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Andrea White, Joseph Conrad and the Adventure Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography

© Roy Johnson 2010


Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad - tutorials Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Red button Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad - eBooks Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad - further reading Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad - adaptations Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Joseph Conrad - etexts Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

Joseph Conrad - journal The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

Conrad US journal The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Joseph Conrad - concordance Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.


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Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: Bibliography, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Modernism, The novel

Lexicography: An Introduction

June 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how dictionaries are compiled and written

This book is an accessible introduction to lexicography – the study of dictionaries and how they are compiled. Howard Jackson provides a detailed overview of the history, types and content of everybody’s essential reference book. He starts with a very readable introduction to the grammar, structure, and history of the English language, then traces the development of dictionaries. This goes from their origins as lists of ‘hard’ (that is, foreign) words in the early Renaissance, via Dr Johnson’s famous attempt to ‘fix the meaning of words’ which when it appeared in 1754 carried a preface admitting that such an attempt was pointless.

Lexicography: An IntroductionNext comes the monumental Oxford English Dictionary, begun by John Murray in 1884, which took forty-four years to complete. He gives a detailed account of the editors’ attempts to be as systematic as possible, constructing their evidence from the work of volunteers. He covers the American tradition of democratic lexicography pioneered by Noah Webster in what emerged at the US popular option, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language. There’s a careful explanation of the differences between shorter and concise dictionaries, and an account of what’s possible in the increasingly popular electronic dictionaries. These now commonly offer search facilities, sample pronunciations, and hypertext links between entries.

He discusses issues of range – what to include or exclude – how entries in a dictionaries are to be displayed, and how much detail is to be provided under each entry. This becomes most interesting when he tackles problems of including new terms, slang expressions, obsolete and taboo terms, and how much etymological history to provide.

The other highpoint is a consideration of the different ways in which words can be defined, when they have multiple meanings (horse, table, back) and often take their meaning from the context in which they are used.

Who will be interested in all this? Students and teachers of language, lexicographers of course, and anyone with an interest in the most popular source of reference in most cultures – the book (or CD-ROM) to which we turn when we need information on the spelling or meaning of a word.

© Roy Johnson 2002

Lexicography: An Introduction   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Lexicography: An Introduction   Buy the book at Amazon US


Howard Jackson, Lexicography: An Introduction, London: Routledge, 2002, pp.190, ISBN: 0415231736


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Filed Under: Dictionaries Tagged With: Bibliography, Dictionaries, Language, Lexicography: An Introduction

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