There's another book that dives deeply into the footnote called unsurprisingly The Footnote -- Grafton, Anthony. The Footnote: A Curious History. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997. You might have run into Grafton before.
‘Book Parts’ looks excellent. Have you seen Keith Houston’s ‘The Book’? It not only provides the history of the book but does so with all sorts of ‘metadata’ about the book in the process.
I remember a course I was on once - unrelated to writing - and one of the ladies told me that she was an 'indexer'. I asked her what she meant, and she said 'it's just that: I am employed to create the indexes of books'. Absolutely amazing. She proceeded to list the books she'd done this for - to say that I was impressed is an understatement!
Thanks Rebecca. Yes, it seems to be quite a skill. There's a Society of Indexers too. Interesting point you imply, to me at any rate, is that I don't think you see the indexer mentioned in the Acknowledgement very often.
There's another book that dives deeply into the footnote called unsurprisingly The Footnote -- Grafton, Anthony. The Footnote: A Curious History. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997. You might have run into Grafton before.
PS Just ordered it from the library! Thanks again
That rings a bell, Mark, thank you. I must have forgotten about it, unless I'm thinking of the Footnote chapter in Book Parts. I'll look it up!
‘Book Parts’ looks excellent. Have you seen Keith Houston’s ‘The Book’? It not only provides the history of the book but does so with all sorts of ‘metadata’ about the book in the process.
I've heard of it but not looked into it. Will have to rectify that
Another fascinating post, Terry - thank you!
I remember a course I was on once - unrelated to writing - and one of the ladies told me that she was an 'indexer'. I asked her what she meant, and she said 'it's just that: I am employed to create the indexes of books'. Absolutely amazing. She proceeded to list the books she'd done this for - to say that I was impressed is an understatement!
Thanks Rebecca. Yes, it seems to be quite a skill. There's a Society of Indexers too. Interesting point you imply, to me at any rate, is that I don't think you see the indexer mentioned in the Acknowledgement very often.
No, it's funny, you're right - as soon as I got home I looked in my copies of books that I knew she'd worked on, and that was exactly the case.