The Book of Prefaces

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This article is not about A Book of Prefaces by H. L. Mencken.

Book cover designed and Illustrated by Alasdair Gray.

The Book of Prefaces, "Edited and Glossed" by the Scottish artist and novelist Alasdair Gray, provides a history of how literature spread and developed through the nations of England, Ireland, Scotland, and the United States. Its subtitle "A Short History of Literate Thought in Words by Great Writers Of Four Nations From The 7th To The 20th Century" outlines its scope.

Gray's own preface begins with An Editor's Advertisement which cites William Smellie's preface to The Philosophy of Natural History published in Edinburgh in 1790 stating what every preface should contain, and concluding that "If this plan had been universally observed, a collection of prefaces would have exhibited a short, but curious and useful history both of literature and authors." In his postscript Gray recounts how reading this in the early 1980s inspired the plan of the book, and after sixteen years on the project (while also producing his other works) the book was completed.

Characteristically, illustrations and design of the typography are by Gray himself, producing a "gorgeously realised" volume. The body of the book provides the prefaces, prologues, introductions or forewords chronologically, each headed with its title, and the year in very large numerals, with commentary by Gray and other writers in small red italic text in a column to the outer side of the leaf as needed to discuss the document. The effect is rather like an annotated Bible.

Of the reviews cited on the back cover of the paperback version, the Palo Alto Daily News comments that "The diversity of the selection is staggering. It manages to be serious, accurate and instructive, but is also an amusing text, quixotic and deeply moving".