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The Book of Prefaces: A Short History of Literate Thought in Words by Great Writers of Four Nations from the 7th to the 20th Century
This book is a unique history of how literature spread and developed through three British nations and most North American states. This anthology gathers the work of great writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Lewis Carroll, John Milton, Edgar Allan Poe, and many more. The Book of Prefaces offers an unusual and unprecedented look at literature, a treat for any reader.
640 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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351 people want to read
About the author
Alasdair Gray
97 books900 followersAlasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.
He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As well as his book illustrations, he painted portraits and murals. His artwork has been widely exhibited and is in several important collections. Before Lanark, he had plays performed on radio and TV.
His writing style is postmodern and has been compared with those of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. It often contains extensive footnotes explaining the works that influenced it. His books inspired many younger Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A.L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Chris Kelso and Iain Banks. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow from 1977 to 1979, and professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities from 2001 to 2003.
Gray was a civic nationalist and a republican, and wrote supporting socialism and Scottish independence. He popularised the epigram "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" (taken from a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Leigh) which was engraved in the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh when it opened in 2004. He lived almost all his life in Glasgow, married twice, and had one son. On his death The Guardian referred to him as "the father figure of the renaissance in Scottish literature and art".
He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As well as his book illustrations, he painted portraits and murals. His artwork has been widely exhibited and is in several important collections. Before Lanark, he had plays performed on radio and TV.
His writing style is postmodern and has been compared with those of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. It often contains extensive footnotes explaining the works that influenced it. His books inspired many younger Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A.L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Chris Kelso and Iain Banks. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow from 1977 to 1979, and professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities from 2001 to 2003.
Gray was a civic nationalist and a republican, and wrote supporting socialism and Scottish independence. He popularised the epigram "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" (taken from a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Leigh) which was engraved in the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh when it opened in 2004. He lived almost all his life in Glasgow, married twice, and had one son. On his death The Guardian referred to him as "the father figure of the renaissance in Scottish literature and art".
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 9, 2019
A magnificent booklover's book which is a pleasure to browse and an education to peruse. Over more than six hundred pages, it gathers great prefaces from works of English literature from Cædmon to Wilfred Owen, alongside Gray's own commentary and frequent interjectory essays. The format accentuates Alasdair Gray's best qualities (idiosyncratic graphic art and page design; a swooping, dilettantish, defiantly marginal viewpoint) while limiting his less appealing ones (tub-thumping leftism, poorly-justified sexual fantasy).
The typesetting, page design, and use of black and red inks make it an aesthetic experience to read, which is important in a book like this that will be dipped into rather than read through. It just feels nice to open it up:
‘William, boss of Normandy…’: a very Grayian opening phrase
One of several full-page plates of Gray's woodcutesque illustrations
On most pages, Gray's commentary is given in red in the margins; texts in Old English/Scottish are shown with the author's own facing-page translations
The book's subtitle explains its method: ‘A Short History of Literate Thought in Words by Great Writers Of Four Nations From The 7th To The 20th Century’, the four nations in question being England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States. It is of course important for Gray that Scotland and Ireland are not subsumed into ‘English lit’; indeed one of the points and the pleasures of this book is that famous prologomena such as
—are put, as it were, shoulder-to-shoulder with lesser known, quote-unquote ‘regional’ passages such as Hary the Minstrel's
Gray's puckish, folksy and politically-inflected commentaries are full of surprising insights and provocative contrasts: he reads English-language literary history much as he reads the world's social history, as a record of inequality – of ordinary people struggling against the oppressions of the wealthy.
It all makes for a wonderfully uncanonical take on the canon: a juicy objet that deserves a prominent spot in any bibliophile's bookshelves.
(Sep 2016)
The typesetting, page design, and use of black and red inks make it an aesthetic experience to read, which is important in a book like this that will be dipped into rather than read through. It just feels nice to open it up:
‘William, boss of Normandy…’: a very Grayian opening phrase
One of several full-page plates of Gray's woodcutesque illustrations
On most pages, Gray's commentary is given in red in the margins; texts in Old English/Scottish are shown with the author's own facing-page translations
The book's subtitle explains its method: ‘A Short History of Literate Thought in Words by Great Writers Of Four Nations From The 7th To The 20th Century’, the four nations in question being England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States. It is of course important for Gray that Scotland and Ireland are not subsumed into ‘English lit’; indeed one of the points and the pleasures of this book is that famous prologomena such as
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…
—are put, as it were, shoulder-to-shoulder with lesser known, quote-unquote ‘regional’ passages such as Hary the Minstrel's
Our antecessowris that we suld of reide
And hald in mynde, that nobille worthi deid
We lat ourslide throw werray sleuthfulnes,
And castis ws evir till uthir besynes.
Gray's puckish, folksy and politically-inflected commentaries are full of surprising insights and provocative contrasts: he reads English-language literary history much as he reads the world's social history, as a record of inequality – of ordinary people struggling against the oppressions of the wealthy.
It all makes for a wonderfully uncanonical take on the canon: a juicy objet that deserves a prominent spot in any bibliophile's bookshelves.
(Sep 2016)
sampled
July 26, 2012A Metapreface
This is a preface to my babble on The Book of Prefaces. Since I only read the preface to The Book of Prefaces and sampled the content, I invite you to only read this extremely short preface and skip the babble, as a metareactive gesture to this metaopening. Goodbye.
Aforemetaprefaced Babble
This book is, presumably, completely unknown to readers outside the UK, possibly even readers outside Scotland. Simply, The Book of Prefaces is a compilation of all the important prefaces (and if you’re in doubt as to the nature of a preface, William H. Gass is on hand to assist you) throughout ALL LITERATURE, EVER, up to 1920 when the public domain laws cut the fun short. Without Gray’s glorious illustrations and chapter designs the book would flounder in scholarly obscurity, but this lively, eccentrically ramshackle curiosity performs well as a coffeetable-crushing reference book and pre-eminently dip-in-able tome of readerly delight. So from Caedmon to Rolle to James I to Hary the Minstral to Tyndal to Hakluyt to Marlowe to Browne to Dryden to Burke to Carlyle to Owen, Gray’s decade-long labour of love (and sloth) is the perfect stocking-ripper for bibliomaniacal tome-hoarders everywhere looking for a reference-book-turned-work-of-art to brighten up their scholarly shelves. There are also glossary contributions from Edwin Morgan, James Kelman and all the other thistled luminaries in this fair land. Now read that William Gass review, it’s an online partial freebie from A Temple of Texts.
This is a preface to my babble on The Book of Prefaces. Since I only read the preface to The Book of Prefaces and sampled the content, I invite you to only read this extremely short preface and skip the babble, as a metareactive gesture to this metaopening. Goodbye.
Aforemetaprefaced Babble
This book is, presumably, completely unknown to readers outside the UK, possibly even readers outside Scotland. Simply, The Book of Prefaces is a compilation of all the important prefaces (and if you’re in doubt as to the nature of a preface, William H. Gass is on hand to assist you) throughout ALL LITERATURE, EVER, up to 1920 when the public domain laws cut the fun short. Without Gray’s glorious illustrations and chapter designs the book would flounder in scholarly obscurity, but this lively, eccentrically ramshackle curiosity performs well as a coffeetable-crushing reference book and pre-eminently dip-in-able tome of readerly delight. So from Caedmon to Rolle to James I to Hary the Minstral to Tyndal to Hakluyt to Marlowe to Browne to Dryden to Burke to Carlyle to Owen, Gray’s decade-long labour of love (and sloth) is the perfect stocking-ripper for bibliomaniacal tome-hoarders everywhere looking for a reference-book-turned-work-of-art to brighten up their scholarly shelves. There are also glossary contributions from Edwin Morgan, James Kelman and all the other thistled luminaries in this fair land. Now read that William Gass review, it’s an online partial freebie from A Temple of Texts.
February 13, 2013
This has been the "bathroom book" since May - and for that it's highly suitable: erudite, thoughtful, and (most importantly) short sections.
I can't help thinking that had this been written in the 60s / 70s and wasn't quite so ... individual, it would have become a standard anthology textbook. Not only do we have a vast chronological compendium anthologising all the greatest writers in English, from Caedmon's anglo saxon loose paraphrasing of Genesis, through to the eulogy to a lost generation that is Wilfred Owen, but we get a gloss on the biography and importance of each writer and - probably the most interesting and informative part of the book - a series of essays interspersed at key periods explaining how the English language developed, why it moved forward in fits and starts rather than a slow regular procession, why we have crowds of great and innovative authors for a few decades and then almost nothing of interest for a century or more.
Being Alasdair Gray, however, not only is it beautifully designed, but also highly opinionated, written in a style not designed to endear itself to schools and professors (parents are always Mums and Dads, King James is Jamie etc) but even if Gray isn't your favourite author (and he's certainly one of mine) there's an awful lot here to keep you interested.
Highly recommended.
I can't help thinking that had this been written in the 60s / 70s and wasn't quite so ... individual, it would have become a standard anthology textbook. Not only do we have a vast chronological compendium anthologising all the greatest writers in English, from Caedmon's anglo saxon loose paraphrasing of Genesis, through to the eulogy to a lost generation that is Wilfred Owen, but we get a gloss on the biography and importance of each writer and - probably the most interesting and informative part of the book - a series of essays interspersed at key periods explaining how the English language developed, why it moved forward in fits and starts rather than a slow regular procession, why we have crowds of great and innovative authors for a few decades and then almost nothing of interest for a century or more.
Being Alasdair Gray, however, not only is it beautifully designed, but also highly opinionated, written in a style not designed to endear itself to schools and professors (parents are always Mums and Dads, King James is Jamie etc) but even if Gray isn't your favourite author (and he's certainly one of mine) there's an awful lot here to keep you interested.
Highly recommended.
February 5, 2014
A thing of beauty.
July 31, 2017
This was a wide-ranging, fabulous achievement. Gray’s work gave me a new appreciation of the evolution of the English language written word and the contributions made by a vast range of thinkers. His afterword expresses some dissatisfaction and refers to some of those he wishes had been included that weren’t. This is an encyclopedic effort that really brought home many of the individual contributions that all lovers of literature owe a tremendous debt to. The quirky personalities and diverse agendas and goals were delightful and engaging. Charles Sanders Peirce is someone I’d love to know more about who was a standout here in his philosophical/scientific achievements, autodidacticism and underappreciation by others, qualities I always find irresistible. Wonderful work.
December 19, 2017
This is a 'dipping' book... for me, at least. I have found it really interesting and beautifully presented. It gives you chance to sample all manner of books that you might not see otherwise.
I keep on coming back to this......
I keep on coming back to this......
June 26, 2022
A book for reference, not to be read straight through, unless you are in special circumstances, e.g. this is the only book you have.
March 13, 2012
This is a beautifully designed book with a fascinating range of prefaces.
The glosses and analyses by the author strongly reveal his prejudices and are entertaining to read as well as providing a place to start your own thoughts on the piece, even if that place is one of disagreement.
The glosses and analyses by the author strongly reveal his prejudices and are entertaining to read as well as providing a place to start your own thoughts on the piece, even if that place is one of disagreement.
July 9, 2012
Man, this is just super fucking great. Choice picks, great typesetting, Gray's commentary to each piece kind of put me in the historical k-hole. I especially enjoyed Johnson's introduction to his English Dictionary.
August 20, 2012
I'll never finish this book but then I don't think you're ever meant to. The idea behind this book is genius & Gray's notations and historical contextual notes make it doubly so. I will dip in and out of this book forever which I believe is exactly as was intended.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews