the Book of Prefaces [Hardcover]

Alasdair Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2000

From Beowulf to Shaw: a history of literature seen through the collected and annotated prefaces of major writers from all over the English-speaking world.

Remember all the times you skipped the preface thinking you would get back to it, and never did? Here is an opportunity to read nothing but prefaces, and you'll be delighted to find what fun you've been missing.

A unique work of literature which will amuse, amaze and inform both casual browsers and students, The Anthology of Prefaces is a work of monumental scholarship and idiosyncratic passion. It is the result of a lifetime's reading, prodigious research and years of creative labor from Scotland's grand old man of letters. Alasdair Gray has chosen and edited all of the prefaces presented in this impressive volume and has included commentary by some thirty other authors including James Kelman, A.L. Kennedy, and Virginia Woolf. The Anthology of Prefaces offers an unusual and unprecedented look at literature, a treat for any reader.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The preface usually contains one of four pleasures, says anthologist Alasdair Gray. There is the biographical snippet, full of gossipy details that "make us feel at home in earlier times." There is the author's attempt to forestall criticism (in first editions) or to answer it (in later ones). There is the report on the state of civilization, both favorable (see Walt Whitman) and unfavorable (see Karl Marx). And there is the attack on other writers or translators, sometimes bridging centuries and containing spears thrown at the long dead. All four pleasures are well represented in this 640-page treasury of English and American intros, which runs from an A.D. 675 translation of Genesis to the 1920 poems of Wilfred Owen. Why stop there? "The flow is stopped at 1920," admits Gray in his own disarmingly self-effacing preface, "by costs of using work still in copyright."

This is anything but anthology-on-the-cheap, however. Gray (Lanark and A History Maker) poured 16 years of research into The Book of Prefaces, and adds considerable value with his own running commentary, which straggles down the margins in brash red ink. Gray on the God of Genesis: "This God, with revenge in mind, first makes earth ugly as hell." Among God's anthologized fellows are Mark Twain, who defends his use of Southern dialect in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Lewis Carroll, who anticipates his critics' charges of writing nonsense in The Hunting of the Snark and proceeds to prove their case; and Charles Darwin, who recalls how the seeds of The Origin of Species were sown aboard the HMS Beagle. Gray mixes scholarly research with playful eccentricities: When was the last time you saw a book's typesetter, typist, and publisher memorialized in pen-and-ink drawings? And "with this in their lavatory," writes the cheeky author, "everyone else can read nothing but newspaper supplements and still seem educated." He may be right. --Claire Dederer

From Library Journal

This long-anticipated book from a major figure in the Scottish literary revival lives up to expectations. A delightfully original, ironic, and humorous compilation, it aims to include every major introductory essay in the English language from Caedmon (seventh century) up to the early 20th century. A red gloss runs down the side of most pages, providing fascinating and often idiosyncratic commentary. The reader learns, for example, that in John Gay's day thieves were likely to hang "unless, like the most successful thieves, they could hire lawyers." Gray, noted for his poetry as well as his novels (Lanark), stories, and plays for stage, radio, and television, was assisted by some 30 contributors, who wrote about 20 percent of the commentary. This book shows how English/American literature spread and developed, but it is itself a work of literature. It is not the mere reference anthology it may appear at first, though it could indeed serve as one. Gray designed this attractive book right down to its quirky dust jacket and drew sketches of many of the contributors. A truly outstanding book; recommended for public and academic libraries.DPeter Dollard, Alma Coll. Lib., MI
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 Us ed edition (June 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582340374
• ISBN-13: 978-1582340371
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #642,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A labour of love but no labour to love, June 2, 2000

By 

"scottish_lawyer" - See all my reviews

This review is from: the Book of Prefaces (Hardcover)

For many years in catalogues of forthcoming publications Alsadair Gray's Anthology of Prefaces has been referred to. Some suspected a Gray type joke as the book failed to appear year on year. Was it a post modern joke? Gray after all was the man that had an erratum slip inserted in an earlier book reading "This erratum slip was inserted by mistake." The apparent joke was taken too far when one catalogue of second hand books published almost a decade ago suggested that the book had not appreciated in value and was worth roughly £20 second hand. This was not a bad sum for a non-existent text. Snippets of text appeared occasionally, and while the book remained unpublished it became apparent that Gray was beginnning to make serious progress on the work. It then became known that others were assisting Gray in his task of glossing the prefaces including crucially important Scottish writers such as Jim Kelman, Tom Leonard, Janice Galloway, and Alison Kennedy.

So now the book has arrived. The title has changed (now The Book of Prefaces, rather than an anthology). The price rather more than the suggested second hand value.

And it is well worth the wait. This will stand as a monument to Gray's achievements as an artist (of words and of pictures). His remit has been to produce a history of literature in English from the sixth century to the present day.

This is a book to revel in. Among prefaces to novels and poems (from the well known, such as Mary Shelley's genesis of Frankenstein to the less well known such as Trahern's poetry) there are prefaces (and prologues) to works of philosophy (e.g. Bentham and Franklin) and law (the introduction to Stair's Institutions, a crucially important work in the survival of Scots law as an independent legal system).

The book is beautifully illustrated, wonderfully designed, and contains a charming introduction by Gray detailing reasons for prefaces and for enjoying reading them (my favourite, enjoying watching authors in a huff).

This book will be an invaluable companion through life, and careful reading will have the desired effect of making an individual appear better read and more erudite than they really are.

Buy and enjoy this wonderful book.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It was worth the wait, Mr. Gray, June 7, 2000

By 

"lexo-2" - See all my reviews

This review is from: the Book of Prefaces (Hardcover)

After a decade and a bit of footling around with pleasant but whimsical novels and the occasional killer short story, Alasdair Gray has finally delivered his long-promised anthology of English-language prefaces. And what a treasure it is. Designed and presented with the author's characteristic loving care, it's a mighty selection of beginnings-of-books from Anglo-Saxon down to 1920 or so (more recent prefaces being excluded because of copyright laws.)

Besides the sheer wealth of Stuff To Read, there are dense, canny and wonderfully sure-footed essays on the progress-or-not of English culture'n'society courtesy of Mister Gray, plus marginal glosses by a variety of highly intelligent people and also Roger Scruton. Scruton (England's dimmest philosopher) provides the gloss on the preface to Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France", and offers up his customary brand of simple-minded conservatism, but it doesn't matter because Gray has already neatly undercut him several dozen pages earlier with his own reflections on the revolution.

A book to keep with you for the rest of your life and leave to someone in your will. There haven't been many such in the past 50 years. And while the errata slip isn't quite exhaustive (there are a few typos that it fails to credit), how can you resist it when it's written in rhyme?

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank You for your Efforts, March 7, 2009

By 

Sye Sye (Perth, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Book of Prefaces (Hardcover)

What a wonderful book in so many ways. Mr Gray has always known how to produce a visually and physically appealling book. His playfulness in this wide reaching book makes the history of literature human: which, of course, it is. Alasdair Gray has not been recognised, outside his native Scotland, for the amazing talents he has; he is one writer who will last for a very long time.