Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #487495 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 640 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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

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

Evening Standard
"He is our nearest contemporary equivalent to Blake, our sweetest-natured screwed-up visionary. Buy the book!"

Customer Reviews

A short (?!) history of English
It's not short nor is it really just about English, but it includes everything from Anglo-Saxon to just about contemporary English - allowing for copyright restrictions etc. Every book you always wanted to read but never actually read is probably here, but of course if you want the subject-matter of the book rather than the preface you will be disappointed. It's really the bluffer's guide to English Literature with a wonderfully florid set of footnotes and glosses which are often (always?) more interesting than the texts.

Utterly amazing
Among bookish books, one of the best imaginable - important and peculiar fragments from a vast history, with illustrations, intelligent glosses and brilliant transitions; the latter include a full revisionist history of Britain and its (cultural) sorrows and joys. Completely amazing - I had not expected such high quality, nor for the whole to be so unusual and arresting... and I'm merely a transported American, so have no personal need to support northern British art.

You should own this, and spend time with it.