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Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities
Dedications, Titles, Epigraphs, Footnotes, Prefaces, Afterwords, Indexes... These and other "invisible" literary necessities form the skeletons of many a book, yet these unacknowledged and unexamined forms abound in wisdom, curiosities, or eccentricities.
With both erudition and wit, and drawing on examples from every part of literature's history, ranging from the greats such as Shakespeare, Beckett, and T. S. Eliot to lesser known writers such as Fernando Pessoa. Jackson's mixture of serious literary analysis and jovial wit means Invisible Forms will appeal to anyone who is interested in books and in the art of writing.
It is the perfect companion for literature lovers everywhere.
With both erudition and wit, and drawing on examples from every part of literature's history, ranging from the greats such as Shakespeare, Beckett, and T. S. Eliot to lesser known writers such as Fernando Pessoa. Jackson's mixture of serious literary analysis and jovial wit means Invisible Forms will appeal to anyone who is interested in books and in the art of writing.
It is the perfect companion for literature lovers everywhere.
- GenresNonfictionLanguage
334 pages, Hardcover
First published November 16, 2000
15 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Jackson
105 books16 followersThere is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
Kevin Jackson's childhood ambition was to be a vampire but instead he became the last living polymath. His colossal expertise ranged from Seneca to Sugababes, with a special interest in the occult, Ruskin, take-away food, Dante's Inferno and the moose. He was the author of numerous books on numerous subjects, including Fast: Feasting on the Streets of London (Portobello 2006), and reviewed regularly for the Sunday Times.
From: http://portobellobooks.com/3014/Kevin...
Kevin Jackson was an English writer, broadcaster and filmmaker.
He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After teaching in the English Department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, he joined the BBC, first as a producer in radio and then as a director of short documentaries for television. In 1987 he was recruited to the Arts pages of The Independent. He was a freelance writer from the early 1990s and was a regular contributor to BBC radio discussion programmes.
Jackson often collaborated on projects in various media: with, among others, the film-maker Kevin Macdonald, with the cartoonist Hunt Emerson, with the musician and composer Colin Minchin (with whom he wrote lyrics for the rock opera Bite); and with the songwriter Peter Blegvad.
Jackson appears, under his own name, as a semi-fictional character in Iain Sinclair's account of a pedestrian journey around the M25, London Orbital.
Adapted from Wikipedia
Kevin Jackson's childhood ambition was to be a vampire but instead he became the last living polymath. His colossal expertise ranged from Seneca to Sugababes, with a special interest in the occult, Ruskin, take-away food, Dante's Inferno and the moose. He was the author of numerous books on numerous subjects, including Fast: Feasting on the Streets of London (Portobello 2006), and reviewed regularly for the Sunday Times.
From: http://portobellobooks.com/3014/Kevin...
Kevin Jackson was an English writer, broadcaster and filmmaker.
He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After teaching in the English Department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, he joined the BBC, first as a producer in radio and then as a director of short documentaries for television. In 1987 he was recruited to the Arts pages of The Independent. He was a freelance writer from the early 1990s and was a regular contributor to BBC radio discussion programmes.
Jackson often collaborated on projects in various media: with, among others, the film-maker Kevin Macdonald, with the cartoonist Hunt Emerson, with the musician and composer Colin Minchin (with whom he wrote lyrics for the rock opera Bite); and with the songwriter Peter Blegvad.
Jackson appears, under his own name, as a semi-fictional character in Iain Sinclair's account of a pedestrian journey around the M25, London Orbital.
Adapted from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 27, 2014
For those too simple (me) to attempt Gérard Genette’s Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, this funnier and easier (not less intellectual) collection discusses those “liminal devices” within and without books, alongside other Invisible Forms: chapters on introductions, titles, pseudonyms, blurbs, dedications, epigraphs, first lines, footnotes, marginalia, stage directions, lectures, follies (the Oulipo), imaginary books and authors, Isaac D’Israeli, last words, appendixes, bibliographies, afterwords, and indexes. Jackson has a delicious wit on a par with his friend Gilbert Adair and a rigorous head for exciting and curious trivia. This collection illuminates its forms with playful textual examples (woven into or forming the texts themselves), making for an addictive and delirious reading experience, and a book that will no doubt remain unsurpassed in its field. Jackson’s non-fiction is lacking in the literary focus I crave . . . I will wait patiently for his opus on the avant-garde. A must for all ye word-goblins!
March 1, 2019
A fascinating excursion into all the bits of books other than the actual text itself. It includes a bibliography (in the chapter on Bibliographies) that shows that each of these "forms" has one or more books dedicated to itself alone. There are books on bibliographies, books on indexes and indexing, books on footnotes and footnoting, and more.
It was inspired by Curiosities of Literature first published in 1791 by Isaac D'Israeli (father of Benjamin Disraeli, sometime Prime Minister of the UK). I have a copy of that too, in three volumes, and one of the oldest books in our house. We have the fourth edition, published in 1794, and it's on my list to read now. I've only dipped into it before, reading an essay here and there (it's that kind of book), but Kevin Jackson has piqued my curiosity.
In addition to the interesting histories and facts about these literary forms, it would be useful to any aspiring writer, as it could give most people a better knowledge of most of them, and in one volume, rather than having to get a separate book for each.
It is also full of droll and erudite humour. Anyone who has worked in academia in the last 30 years and has gradually seen the proportion of administrative to academic staff rise enormously will be amused, or perhaps dismayed, by a footnote on footnotes, discussing the profusion of footnotes and other references in academic books:
Indexes have taken many forms, and some have taken a narrative form, telling a story in themselves. Jackson notes that some publishers, no doubt inspired by their bean counters, had left indexes out of some of their academic books, not so much because of the extra expense of including them, but to foil academics who, in search of a couple of citations, would simply browse the index in a bookshop instead of buying the book.
There are several chapters devoted to pseudonyms, heteronyms and fictional books and authors.
One example of a fictitious book that he gives is The Necronomicon, frequently mentioned, with an elaborate pedigree, in the horror stories of H.P. Lovecraft, and Jackson tells of people who have gone into bookshops to order copies, only to be told that it doesn't exist.
Since this book was published 20 years ago, a more recent example has occurred. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown mentioned similar fictitious books. The protagonist, Professor Robert Langdon is introduced as the author of The Symbology of Secret Sects, The Art of the Illuminati and a few others. When my son worked in a bookshop a few years ago a customer came in and asked if they had one of these books. My son said they did not. The customer then asked him to order it, and my son said he could not, as the book did not exist. The customer angrily waved a copy of The Da Vinci Code, pointing to where the book was mentioned, and my son explained that it was a work of fiction, and the protagonist was a fictitious character, and that the books that the story mentioned were fictitious works. The customer got even more angry, and threatened to report him to the management for refusing to order the book.
Jackson gives more examples of fictitious authors, some of whom published real works. There were three Portuguese poets who did not exist. Another imaginary character turned up in several books, as various authors joined in the fun.
A quick read was informative and illuminating, but one could have weeks or even months of fun following up some of the more obscure allusions.
It was inspired by Curiosities of Literature first published in 1791 by Isaac D'Israeli (father of Benjamin Disraeli, sometime Prime Minister of the UK). I have a copy of that too, in three volumes, and one of the oldest books in our house. We have the fourth edition, published in 1794, and it's on my list to read now. I've only dipped into it before, reading an essay here and there (it's that kind of book), but Kevin Jackson has piqued my curiosity.
In addition to the interesting histories and facts about these literary forms, it would be useful to any aspiring writer, as it could give most people a better knowledge of most of them, and in one volume, rather than having to get a separate book for each.
It is also full of droll and erudite humour. Anyone who has worked in academia in the last 30 years and has gradually seen the proportion of administrative to academic staff rise enormously will be amused, or perhaps dismayed, by a footnote on footnotes, discussing the profusion of footnotes and other references in academic books:
There used to be a method, no doubt encouraged by bean counters, whereby the 'objective' worth of an article or book was supposed to be gauged by the number of citations received in other books or articles. The effect was predictable by anyone who isn't a bean counter: academics would set up little back-scratching groups or cartels of citation.
Indexes have taken many forms, and some have taken a narrative form, telling a story in themselves. Jackson notes that some publishers, no doubt inspired by their bean counters, had left indexes out of some of their academic books, not so much because of the extra expense of including them, but to foil academics who, in search of a couple of citations, would simply browse the index in a bookshop instead of buying the book.
There are several chapters devoted to pseudonyms, heteronyms and fictional books and authors.
One example of a fictitious book that he gives is The Necronomicon, frequently mentioned, with an elaborate pedigree, in the horror stories of H.P. Lovecraft, and Jackson tells of people who have gone into bookshops to order copies, only to be told that it doesn't exist.
Since this book was published 20 years ago, a more recent example has occurred. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown mentioned similar fictitious books. The protagonist, Professor Robert Langdon is introduced as the author of The Symbology of Secret Sects, The Art of the Illuminati and a few others. When my son worked in a bookshop a few years ago a customer came in and asked if they had one of these books. My son said they did not. The customer then asked him to order it, and my son said he could not, as the book did not exist. The customer angrily waved a copy of The Da Vinci Code, pointing to where the book was mentioned, and my son explained that it was a work of fiction, and the protagonist was a fictitious character, and that the books that the story mentioned were fictitious works. The customer got even more angry, and threatened to report him to the management for refusing to order the book.
Jackson gives more examples of fictitious authors, some of whom published real works. There were three Portuguese poets who did not exist. Another imaginary character turned up in several books, as various authors joined in the fun.
A quick read was informative and illuminating, but one could have weeks or even months of fun following up some of the more obscure allusions.
May 21, 2025
The concept of this book is interesting, and there are some great trivia facts I did not know, but the academic approach and the endless strings of just name after name after entry after entry bogged it down for me. It was also a little irritating the way the author would say "of course everyone knows" and attribute it to some obscure literary point that most people, in fact, do not know. Still fun, but a little dry.
November 23, 2008
"Invisible Forms are the parts of books that we see every time we take a hardback or paperback from the shelf and flick through it: titles, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, footnotes, indexes and so on - in short, all the minor elements and dressings which help serve up the principal content of a book to its readership..." (xv) But Jackson is also interested in pseudonyms, heteronyms, imaginary books and authors, first and last lines, stage directions, marginalia, and blurbs. Quite a pleasant diversion, that feels like a literary education and contains many a good laugh. Put me to sleep happy for many a night.
September 10, 2011
I read this one during my breaks at work. Being a bit of a book lover, I thought the material in this book would be interesting. I found the book to be a bit too 'dry', however. The author tries to inject some humour into this book, and yes, I learnt a fair bit, but I could not help feeling that the author was trying too hard to come off as very, very clever. This translated into 'boring' for me. Still, I persisted and finished the book.
December 30, 2015
Clever, meta--this book talks about the various aspects of writing that we don't consider: the art of the footnote, the role of pseudonyms, the way of the blurb. It's often humorous and always enlightening, but I wish I hadn't read it straight through. One of those books to read a chapter every now and then as a literary palate cleanser.
December 29, 2020
A wonderful exploration of literary forms you might not consider to be literary forms. Mr Jackson shows a wide breadth of knowledge and taste in this survey of previously unappreciated genres such as footnotes, appendices, marginalia and so many others. His style is breezy and informed and you never feel as though something is too unimportant to be considered, nor does he make the reader feel like an idiot: he really seems to enjoy this sort of thing and his is the kind of enjoyment that is infectious. My only problem is that it really is the kind of book that deserves to be read in chunks over time rather than in a linear sequence like I did over a couple of days. Alas, I realised this too late.
August 11, 2025
Brilliant and fascinating.
December 18, 2008
"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice and that was my initial response to this unique book. Written by Kevin Jackson, a writer and traveler and somewhat of a mystery, Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities is a book about books. It is specifically about the 'other', the 'invisible' forms or parts of almost every book that are there "in plain sight"; ignored or assumed away when considering the book, but not by Kevin Jackson. He discusses dedications, titles, epigraphs, footnotes, prefaces, afterwords, indexes and even the imaginary: imaginary books and authors. Marginalia is not left out in this delightful compendium of useful and whimsical knowledge and trivia. The epigraphs for the book are worth considering:
There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books. (George Santayana, Realms of Being)
Some of the means I use are trivial - and some are quadrivial. (James Joyce, responding to accusations of triviality)
The contents of Invisible Forms exist in that realm somewhere between the trivial and the whole world. It is an interesting place, one that invites the reader in for a dip now and then. Watch out that you are not engulfed by the world of Invisible Forms.
There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books. (George Santayana, Realms of Being)
Some of the means I use are trivial - and some are quadrivial. (James Joyce, responding to accusations of triviality)
The contents of Invisible Forms exist in that realm somewhere between the trivial and the whole world. It is an interesting place, one that invites the reader in for a dip now and then. Watch out that you are not engulfed by the world of Invisible Forms.
December 11, 2008
nothing exceptional, I am afraid. It was okay. I have read a good deal of Basbanes and Dirda, so this was a bit of moping up what others have provided, better written in many cases. But it's an okay supplemental book to have around - should you have the space to have this book around.
August 9, 2011
Really interesting! Highly recommended.
April 27, 2012
A fascinating look at some under-used or under-considered literary devices.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews