the Book of Prefaces

From Beowulf to Shaw: a history of literature seen through the collected and annotated prefaces of major writers from all over the English-speaking world.Remember all the times you skipped the preface thinking you would get back to it, and never did? Here is an opportunity to read nothing but prefaces, and you'll be delighted to find what fun you've been missing.A unique work of literature which will amuse, amaze and inform both casual browsers and students, The Anthology of Prefaces is a work of monumental scholarship and idiosyncratic passion. It is the result of a lifetime's reading, prodigious research and years of creative labor from Scotland's grand old man of letters. Alasdair Gray has chosen and edited all of the prefaces presented in this impressive volume and has included commentary by some thirty other authors including James Kelman, A.L. Kennedy, and Virginia Woolf. The Anthology of Prefaces offers an unusual and unprecedented look at literature, a treat for any reader.