PREFACE

preface to collected literary transcripts

PREFACE

All of the books I have here transcribed were keyed-in to a PC during a twelve–fifteen year spell from the mid-‘90s to the present day, and derive from my private library of assorted paperbacks, some of which I bought, many of which I acquired either free or at significantly reduced prices via a one-time neighbour of mine who happened to be a part-time bookseller. Generally I have endeavoured to avoid infringing copyright, though there are one or two works which I simply couldn’t indefinitely postpone taking to task, or keying-in to my computer, if only because they were victims of a disproportionate number of typographical or other blunders which, once duly noted in the margins, made it impossible for me to take them for granted, and simply leave unremarked upon and therefore uncorrected.

Accordingly I have done my best to ensure that any mistakes in or liberties taken with the original text by printers or others in these particular works have been corrected, so that the result is usually distinctly superior to what I encountered in the actual book, and serves as recompense, in some degree, for a publishing injustice, not least, I would argue, from the authors’ standpoints.

I have also included an Introductory Explanation with the transcripts in order to justify my various procedures in respect of all these works which, since I’m not a businessman, I do not intend to capitalize on and, since I’m not overly criminal (at least not intentionally), I cannot claim as my own, even though I have done much to rectify and improve them, and to a point where they compare very favourably with the original publication. Therefore it is proper that such transcripts be regarded within the context of a personal if somewhat educational project that should at least satisfy my intellectual conscience as to the desirability of electronic transcriptions from both a technological and, more importantly, a technical standpoint.

Finally, I should like to draw attention to the fact that I have included links to my own original literary work at the top and bottom of this page (only two of several possible sites). This is done on the provisional basis that anyone who, theoretically, bothered to read one or more of my transcripts would have to come to the conclusion, sooner or later, that I was an intelligent if not unusually clever person, since few of the transcribed works were easy or straightforward, and that my own writings probably warrant respectful attention in consequence of such evidence of my abilities as is provided by the transcripts, both technically and in relation to the choice of titles, few if any of which would accord with merely popular taste! Hence the transcripts could be regarded as, in some sense, an introduction to my original writings, since they should provide evidence of my ability to grapple with and resolve complex literary issues.