Editing Versions

G. Thomas Tanselle’s Descriptive Bibliography — a monumental compilation of essays devoted to bibliographical theory and practice as they have evolved as a discipline since the 1960s — not only attests to Tanselle’s vibrant career but is also an occasion to reflect on bibliography as a “way of thinking” about book history, material culture, the editing of fluid texts, and digital scholarship. In our profession, the field of descriptive bibliography has endured decades of begrudging tolerance as “merely” custodial rather than critical; and yet bibliography — in so far as it records change — is the fundamental grounding for any historicist and materialist project. Melville’s so-called “L-word” in Typee — once it is tracked from manuscript to first edition to revised edition — records an “oscillating revision” in Melville’s thinking and writing that exemplifies the dance between accident and intentionality in the creative process. Tanselle’s essays on the practical workings of bibliography also suggest the field’s ability to extend its scope beyond idealized notions of the authorial work and to embrace non-authorized reprints, periodical placement, illustration, and non-literary documents, as well as adaptive revision in film and translation. Descriptive bibliography is essential for our deeper engagement with how and why versions evolve. Advancements in digital strategies related to database and display will facilitate the future acceptance of descriptive bibliography among literary scholars and critics seeking to test the interpretive potentials of biography, material history and culture, and the fluid text.

The Book Cover as a Paratext: Biblia Germanicolatina in the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

The book cover of Biblia Germanicolatina (1565), which is held at the Rare Books and Manuscrips Unit of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, is analysed in this paper. This Bible was printed in a 20-volume collection in Wittenberg on request of August the Elect of Saxony (1526–1586). It was printed in the Latin and German languages. This Bible later became a part of various European libraries. Biblia Germanicolatina is analysed in the light of the paratext theory, which as a book history term is first used by French literary theorist Gerard Genette (1987). Genette used this term to describe objects and subjects surrounding the text: text spacing, lettering, book covers and even book advertisements. The analysis is performed using the provenance method, which leads to discovering the origins of the book’s binding and its primary sources. As of right now, five out of the 20 volumes from the collection are known to be held in Lithuanian memory institutions. As a result of this research, we were able to identify the bookbinder from Wittenberg who ordered the plate for tooling in 1564.

The Metempiricism of Margins: Professor Anthony Aṣiwaju and the Circumference of Knowledge

Professor Anthony Aṣiwaju has written his memoir, Bridging Boundaries, to commemorate his 80th birthday, thus giving us a treasure to behold, a legacy to cherish, and a history to keep. This is about his past, from humble beginnings to a remarkable career; about the educational system of Nigeria, in particular, the discipline of History; and about the crucial interconnectivity between ideas and practical policies. There is so much to be learned from this book—history, memory, wisdom—all the chemistry of ideas to navigate complicated journeys. Let me begin this journey from Paris, and not from Imeko, the starting point in this engaging frontier of scholarship. It was in the elegant living room of Professor Ọlábìyí Yai, the then Ambassador of the Republic of Benin to UNESCO. As we enjoyed a peaceful pre- àmàlà drinking moment, we launched into a conversation that invoked Professor Aṣiwaju’s name and experience. His Excellency, Ambassador Yai, made the remark that the Yoruba had always been diasporic, moving like a river, connecting multiple points, passing through valleys and plateaus, between mountains, across vegetation. This conversation came back to me as I composed this short piece. My mind also went back to the frontier towns of Imeko and Ifonyin, to the journeys I took from Igboho to Cotonou via the scenic route far away from the chaotic Lagos-Badagry road. Onwards to the Ewe, thereafter passing through the domains of the Akan, and at one time ending in Abidjan, all on roads—no bounds in space; no mental bounding lines; and seamless frontiers, one merging with the other, as the next unfolds. Professor Aṣiwaju does these diasporic 244 Profile trips as well—barefoot, bicycles, cars, and on airplanes—and, maybe, also in dreams. He sees the boundaries, then dissolves them, recreating them in a new world order, a world without boundaries. I think Professor Aṣiwaju’s life breaks the rules, creating a frame much larger than his beginnings. Contrary to the man-confining adage of “cut your coat according to your cloth/size,” the autobiography of Professor Aṣiwaju has exemplified that the Supreme God cuts and designs coat without the delimitations or regard of one’s size or cloth. If not, it would not have been possible for a child born without any medical attention and care on bare ground to rise into a nationally and internationally celebrated icon. Incontrovertibly, his destiny was predestined even before birth, what the Yoruba call àyànmọ, ́ although the Odù Ifá code was never revealed to him. Thus, God designed the coat of his excellence above the odds of a humble and subaltern beginning of a poor child, now the prosperous Baba at 80. How time flies! Generous in his account, expansive in his details and meticulous in remembrance, the scope of his life is exposed to us in its minor canvas and major perimeter. Bridging Boundaries is a chronological account of the author’s life from birth to date on the one hand, as well as the history of borderland studies in Nigeria and Africa, which is inseparable from his autobiography. The life of the author, Aṣiwaju, becomes the account of the aṣíwájú of the borderlands, the leader of the bold and courageous to discover the confines of space, like Ogún, the Yoruba god of iron, who forges new paths and abodes from the forest to the savanna for people to occupy. Strikingly, the inseparability of the man’s life from his career path appears to be synonymous with the bond between a snail and its shell: his origin and horizon live within the same shell. No doubt, his origin became the bedrock of his successful career. A scholar from cross-border parents with an upbringing in a borderland who specializes in borderland studies, which was initially focused on the Nigeria/Benin limitrophe states, then blossomed continentally and intercontinentally. Evident in his story is that a poor background neither limits nor determines the factor for the level of success one can attain; rather, it is a starting point, a background to project possibilities of whatever one can become unto, a launching pad into life’s enduring legacy.

Об одной библиографической химере: трактат Д. С. Аничкова в издании Н. И. Новикова

References to Dmitrii Anichkov’s Annotationes in logicam, metaphysicam et cosmologiam (1782) regularly appear in literature on Russian book history. However, this publication not only did not exist, but could not exist. Anichkov, following the classification put forth by Christian Wolf and Friedrich Baumeister, regarded cosmology as part of metaphysics. In fact, Anichkov’s textbook, entitled Annotationes in logicam et metaphysicam, which was published in 1782 and 1783, included two volumes that ontology and cosmology respectively. Both are yet to be explored.

A Brazilian Perspective on Audiobooks

This paper presents a Brazilian perspective on audiobooks. It contextualizes the past and current realities of the format in the country, on the basis of surveys coordinated by national associations connected to the book market and of archival research we have undertaken, and shows some examples of recorded literary works and recent initiatives in audiobook production. The ‘acoustic-editorial project’ idea is proposed as a way to highlight and deepen the materiality and production process of audiobooks, and to understand the editorial elements through which the listening experience is created. Authors from book history, bibliography, communication theory, and audiobook studies influenced this investigation and strengthened our construction of audiobooks as a research object.

Introduction to the Study on Regeneration in Lizards as an Amniote Model of Organ Regeneration

Initial observations on the regeneration of the tail in lizards were recorded in brief notes by Aristotle over 2000 years ago, as reported in his book, History of Animals (cited from [...]

How and Why to Do Things with Eighteenth-Century Manuscripts

This Element examines eighteenth-century manuscript forms, their functions in the literary landscape of their time, and the challenges and practices of manuscript study today. Drawing on both literary studies and book history, Levy and Schellenberg offer a guide to the principal forms of literary activity carried out in handwritten manuscripts produced in the first era of print dominance, 1730-1820. After an opening survey of sociable literary culture and its manuscript forms, numerous case studies explore what can be learned from three manuscript types: the verse miscellany, the familiar correspondence, and manuscripts of literary works that were printed. A final section considers issues of manuscript remediation up to the present, focusing particularly on digital remediation. The Element concludes with a brief case study of the movement of Phillis Wheatley's poems between manuscript and print. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.