Indexers and Indexes in Fact and Fiction

Bell examines the history of the index and the depiction of the indexer (from diffident drudge to frankly insane) in both fact and fiction. A fascinating look at a previously little-considered element of the book.

Hazel Bell is a freelance indexer, compiler of over 600 published indexes, and was editor of The Indexer, the journal of the Society of Indexers, for 18 years.

Foreword

11

(6)

A.S. Byatt

Introductory note

17

(9)

`Life: not an index'

26

(1)

I INDEXES IN FACT

27

(73)

Pre-19th century

28

(17)

The first printed index: St Augustine, De arte praedicandi (1427)

Quaintness is all: Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

Severest penalties incurred: William Prynne, Histrio-Mastix (1633)

Questionable: Athenian Gazette (1691-97)

One-man onslaught: Charles Boyle (1698)

Tory history - Whig indexer: Laurence Echard, History of England (1718)

Can it be so? William Hawkins, A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown (1724)

All in the family: Roger North, The Lives of the Norths (1742-44)

For the fair sex: Lady's Magazine (1742/1776)

Nature notes with footnote: Gilbert White, History of Selborne (1789)

19th century

45

(16)

Blackmail: Harriette Wilson, Memoirs (1831)

Thinking it over: Sir Thomas Browne, The Works of (1835)

Awful fates of authors: Isaac D'Israeli, Calamities of Authors (1840)

Robust pamphleteering; Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850)

Some have greatness thrust upon them: Lawbook

Enhancing the text: John Ruskin, Fors Clavigera (1871-72)

Prominence of inessentials: The Times index (1868)

Erotic pedantry - or pedantic eroticism? Henry Ashbee, Index Librorum Probibitorum (1877)

Racy and racist: James Russell Lowell, The Biglow Papers (1886)

Domestic plus moral guidance: Enquire Within Upon Everything (1888)

Index of an opium-eater: Thomas de Quincey, Collected Writings (1896-97)

20th century

61

(37)

Vainglorious introduction: James Boswell: The Life of Samuel Johnson and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1900)

Blanket pulping: Hilaire Belloc, Caliban's Guide to Letters (1903)

Mythical indexing: Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough (1922)

You are old, Father William... A. Lapthorn Smith, How to be Useful and Happy from Sixty to Ninety (1922)

Holiday exuberance: Norman Douglas, Together (1923)

The index belligerent: Lloyd George, War Memoirs (1938)

Shavian provocativeness: George Bernard Shaw, Prefaces (1934)

What indexes! Independent indexing principles: A. P. Herbert, What a Word (1935); Independent Member (1952); The Thames (1966); Sundials - Old and New (1967)

A discordant index: Donald Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis (1935-39)

Indexmanship: Stephen Potter, Gamesmanship (1947)

Tale-telling: James Boswell, London Journal (1950)

With tongue in (both) cheeks: G. V. Carey, Making an Index (1951)

Droit de fille: Textbook of Pediatrics (1959)

Let me help: W. E. Tate, The English Village Community and the Enclosure Movements (1967)

Sequential subheadings: Desmond Ryan, The Fenian Chief: A Biography of James Stephens (1967)

The hit direct: Bernard Levin, The Pendulum Years (1970)

Indigestible index: Magnus Pyke, Man and Food (1970)

The Frank Muir index: The Frank Muir Book: An Irreverent Companion to Social History (1976)

Prejudicial introduction: Peter Schickele, The Definitive Biography of P.D. 2. Bach (1976)

Forbearance: Hugh Vickers, Great Operatic Disasters (1979)

Literally food for thought? Equality

Keith Joseph

Jonathan Sumption

Egoism rampant: Joseph Bonnano, A Man of Honour (1983)

Kiss and have it told: Pepys's Diary (1983 edition)

It didn't work out that way... Cerf and Navasky, The Experts Speak (1984)

Monstrous entry: Guide to Britain's Nature Reserves (1984)

Conductor's contempt: Hunter Davies, The Good Guide to the Lakes (1986)

The terminology of the shrew: Dale Spender, Scribbling Sisters (1986)

Cramming it onto a page: Patrick Barlow, All the World's a Globe, or from Lemur to Cosmonaut: Desmond Olivier Dingle's Concise History of the Human Race (1987)

Guess who? A. Summers and S. Dorril, Honeytrap: The Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward (1987)

Political affiliation no secret: Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor: The Reagan Years (1989)

Nudge, nudge: Julian Barnes, Letters from London 1990-1995 (1995)

No fury like it: Margaret Cook, A Slight and Delicate Creature (1999)

Inveighing against the computer: Clifford Stoll, High Tech Heretic (1999)

21st century

98

(2)

Invecticon: Nicolas Slonimsky, Lexicon of Musical Invective (2000)

Indexer manque: Bangkok Post Week in Review (2000)

Look, you: Frewin Poffley, Greek Island Hopping (2001)

II FICTION AND VERSE WITH INDEXES

100

(25)

18th-century vindictive: Alexander Pope, The Dunciad (1728)

`The bliss of excessive fondness': Samuel Richardson, Clarissa (1755)

Hymnal half-lines (1873)

Victorian whimsicality: Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno (1889/1893)

Transindexuality: Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)

Verse, bad - index, good: D. B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee, The Stuffed Owl (1930)

Misleading indexes: A. P. Herbert, More Misleading Cases et alia (1927-35)

A clerihindex? The Complete Clerihews of E. Clerihew Bentley (1951/1983)

Editorial usurpation: Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)

Surreal complexity: Georges Perec, Life: a User's Manual: Fictions (1970)

First and last lines: Ogden Nash, Selected Poems (1975)

The subject elusive: anti-index: Malcolm Bradbury, My Strange Quest for Mensonge (1987)

Para-index: Lucy Ellmann, Sweet Desserts (1988)

Narrative by index: J. G. Ballard, War Fever (1990)

III INDEXERS IN FICTION

125

(30)

Official strictures: Anthony Trollope, The Small House at Allington (1862)

Indexer brought down by alcoholism: Anthony Trollope, `The Spotted Dog' (1870)

Indexing in Baker Street: Conan Doyle, stories of Sherlock Holmes

Absorption and love: Angela Thirkell, Northbridge Rectory (1941); County Chronicle (1950)

Deer-stalkers and data banks: indexers and indexes in crime fiction

Ladies at work: Barbara Pym, Excellent Women (1952); Jane and Prudence (1953); No Fond Return of Love (1961); An Unsuitable Attachment (1982)

A hundred million entries: Bertrand Russell, `The Theologian's Nightmare' (1954)

A shameless exhibition: Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle (1963)

If unpublished, burn: Georges Perec, Life: a User's Manual: Fictions (1970)

Infatuation with a swarming index: Jane Langton, The Memorial Hall Murder (1974)

Eccentric, shabby and normally durnk: C. Northcote Parkinson, Jeeves: a Gentleman's Personal Gentleman (1979)

Archives of oblivion: Graham Swift, Shuttlecock (1982)

Lively indexers: Penelope Lively, Perfect Happiness (1983)

A life-time's task: Anita Brookner, Lewis Percy (1989)

Lady obstructionist: A. S. Byatt, Possession (1990)

More than one needs to know: Paul Bailey, Kitty and Virgil (1998)

Life is just an index: Deborah Moggach, `How to Divorce Your Son' (2000)

Acknowledgements

155

(2)

Index

157

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

FREE SHIPPING

Rent More, Save More! Use code: BBRENTAL

5% off 1 book, 7% off 2 books, 10% off 3+ books

Indexers and Indexes in Fact and Fiction

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

FREE SHIPPING

Rent More, Save More! Use code: BBRENTAL

5% off 1 book, 7% off 2 books, 10% off 3+ books

Indexers and Indexes in Fact and Fiction

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

Digital License