The Book of Prefaces - Hardcover

Gray, Alasdair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747544433 ISBN 13: 9780747544432

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2000

Synopsis

While Alasdair Gray has chosen and edited all the prefaces and has written most of the commentary he has been assisted in this endeavour by some thirty authors who have also written commentaries. These include James Kelman, Janice Galloway, A.L. Kennedy, Bernard MacLaverty, Liz Lochhead, Roger Scruton and, indeed, Virginia Woolf. A copy of the "Book of Prefaces" should be found in every household and hotel bedroom. It is a unique work of literature, indeed a history of literature which will delight and amaze and inform both casual browsers and students. Its like has never been seen nor will it be seen again for at least another millennium.

About this title

Review:

Described as "A Short History of Literate Thought in Words by Great Writers of Four Nations from the 7th to the 20th Century Edited & Glossed by Alasdair Gray Mainly", this impressive anthology grafts "together pieces cut from the corpus of ... mostly the dead whose copyrights have lapsed"! (The prefaces start with early masters such as Caedmon and Bede, work their way through Chaucer, Caxton, Leland et al to Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne and their contemporaries, on to Dryden and Pope and up through the 18th and 19th Century greats). As with all Gray's work the book itself is a work of art: a visual artist of some merit, Gray sees the book object itself as an important site to work his wonders and this is one of his most ambitious books to date. Beautifully illustrated with distinctive typefaces and "footnoted" throughout in red (these annotations come from Gray and many of the foremost writers in Scotland) with "marginal glosses ... in small type about its book, author, language and events shaping these". After having prepared it for about the last 16 years, this monster 640-page collection of prefaces does not disappoint. It is a remarkable, adventurous journey through some of the most important marginalia of English Lit. and Gray, with his quirky, intelligent and incisive Scottish wit, makes for a wonderful guide. --Mark Thwaite

Review:

"It wouldn't be an exaggeration to hail Alasdair Gray as one of Scotlands greatest living novelists." -- The List Festival Guide 9-15th August 2001

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0747544433
• ISBN 13: 9780747544432
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640