The Book of Prefaces

The Book of Prefaces, is a 2000 book "edited and glossed" by the Scottish artist and novelist Alasdair Gray. It seeks to provide 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 thirty other writers (including Angus Calder, Alan Spence, Robert Crawford, Bruce Leeming, and Paul Henderson Scott) 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".

Joseph Rosenblum noted some oddities and flaws:

Through his collection of prefaces Gray allows the reader to trace metamorphoses in English from c. 675 to 1920. The survey ends with this latter date to avoid the expense of copyright royalties, but the book's more than six hundred pages still provide a cornucopia of material. Gray's introductory and marginal comments place the selections in literary and historical context. The book is printed handsomely in black and red and is embellished with attractive illustration.
The Book of Prefaces would be an ideal text for teaching linguistic and perhaps even literary history were it not so riddled with errors, typographical and factual. To avoid copyright royalties, the publisher excluded not only most twentieth century authors but also twentieth century scholarly editions. In fact, the reader has no idea which editions Gray used, raising questions about the form and content of the selections. While most passages are given in their original and, when necessary, in translation, some appear only in modern dress. The innocent reader might thus be led to believe that Caxton's orthography underwent a dramatic revolution between his 1484 preface to The Canterbury Tales, printed here as Caxton wrote it, and the 1490 preface to the Aeneid, which Gray has purged of its fifteenth century look. The plan and, in places, the execution of this work are so good that one regrets that the final product does not fulfill its potential.

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