Showing posts with label 1960. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1960. Show all posts

Sunday

Acquisitions (112): John Betjeman


John Betjeman: The Illustrated Summoned by Bells (1989)

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Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984)

John Betjeman: The Illustrated Summoned by Bells (1989)
[Bought in Colonial Collectables, Browns Bay, Auckland - 15/5/24]:

John Betjeman. The Illustrated Summoned by Bells. 1960. Paintings and Sketches by Hugh Casson. 1989. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd. / The Herbert Press, 1995.

John Guest, ed.: The Best of Betjeman (1978))

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The Best of Betjeman


"John Betjeman was a mediocre poet – but he wrote one brilliant poem," according to a British newspaper pundit by the name of Simon Heffer. Of Betjeman's verse autobiography, Summoned by Bells, Heffer opines: "It isn’t doggerel, but it hardly qualifies as poetry. Less thought seems to have gone into his rhymes than into [his] television scripts." [NB: Summoned by Bells is written in non-rhyming blank verse].
I then revisited the Collected Poems, and found one undemanding bit of verse after another, reaffirming my belief that this was poetry for people who don’t like their verse too profound, or too strenuously poetic.
Well, f-- you very much for that little contribution, Simon. You can leave now.

His article as a whole does rather put one in mind of a celebrated passage from Summoned by Bells itself:
After Miss Usher had gone home to Frant,
Miss Tunstall took me quietly to the hedge:
"Now shall I tell you what Miss Usher said
About you, John?" "Oh please, Miss Tunstall, do!"
"She said you were a common little boy."
[chap. 4 - "Cornwall in Childhood": p.49]


It's not that Heffer doesn't have a point. His summary of Betjeman as a "comic poet in the mould of Belloc or Chesterton" has a certain justice to it. But I doubt that he knows as much as he thinks about poets and poetry if he believes that those two "had poetry as a sideline, but, unlike Betjeman, had no pretensions about it."

We may prefer the Father Brown stories and Belloc's Cautionary Tales to their more formal verses, but like virtually all writers in this medium, they took what they did desperately seriously. Does Heffer imagine that it's accidental that all three of these poets remain so readable when their more ambitious contemporaries have faded into the dust of second-hand bookshops?


The Times: The Death of King George V (20 January, 1936)


And what is that "one brilliant poem" which, in Heffer's estimation, redeems poor old John? Well, not to keep you in suspense, it's "Betjeman’s poem of 1936 on the death of King George V."
Not only is it to my mind his greatest poem, but one of the great English poems of the last century. Unlike so much of his work, it does not instantly invite parody; its greatness lies in its acute and concise portrayal of the king, and the sense that his death moved Britain from one way of life to another.
So let's hear it, then:
Spirit of well-shot woodcock, partridge, snipe
Flutter and bear him up the Norfolk sky:
In that red house in a red mahogany book-case
The stamp collection waits with mounts long dry.

The big blue eyes are shut which saw wrong clothing
And favourite fields and coverts from a horse;
Old men in country houses hear clocks ticking
Over thick carpets with a deadened force;

Old men who never cheated, never doubted,
Communicated monthly, sit and stare
At the new suburb stretched beyond the runway
Where a young man lands hatless from the air.


I agree that it's a bloody good poem - very much in Betjeman's earlier mode: "Death in Leamington" or "The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel." But is it really so much better than the rest of the work in Mount Zion or Continual Dew? Heffer thinks so:
A world of standards and tradition is being blown away by the sub-art deco sprawl of Metroland, by a king (Edward VIII) who is consorting with another man’s wife, and who doesn’t even bother to wear a hat. It takes a considerable poet to force all that meaning into 12 lines. On that basis, and however ordinary so much of his output, Betjeman the poet merits admiration after all.
Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed ... Actually, in his graceless, grudging, bovine way, Simon Heffer has stumbled on an important truth about Betjeman. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day! The fact is, all of his readers - even his greatest admirers - find his fluent facetiousness wearying at times. But all of them make an exception for one great poem.

The funny thing, which old Dumbo above was on the verge of discovering, is that it's always a different poem. For me "Death in Leamington" has a sinister edge below the pastiche Victorianism which transforms it from verse to poetry. I can read it again and again and it keeps on changing.

I also like the way Betjeman is so adept at delivering painful stingers in the midst of otherwise fairly ordinary narrative verse. I've already given one example above, but here's another, from "False Security" (1954):
Can I forget my delight at the conjuring show?
And wasn't I proud that I was the last to go?
Too overexcited and pleased with myself to know
That the words I heard my hostess's mother employ
To a guest departing, would ever diminish my joy,
I WONDER WHERE JULIA FOUND THAT STRANGE, RATHER COMMON LITTLE BOY?
Then there's the culmination of "Cricket Master: An Incident" (1960):
"D'you know what Winters told me, Betjeman?
He didn't think you'd ever held a bat."

John Betjeman: Summoned by Bells (1960)


The other day I was looking around an antique shop in Browns Bay when I came across a copy of the illustrated version of Summoned by Bells. I already had the edition above, but it seemed worthwhile to invest a few dollars in the rather charming drawings and watercolours with which Betjeman's old friend Hugh Casson adorned the book.


Uffington Museum: Archie and the Poet (2023)


Rereading it, I was struck again by the intense class anxiety which seems to lie at the root of his work - as with so many other English writers. Betjeman's teddy bear Archie (full name Archibald Ormsby-Gore) is alleged to have been the original for Sebastian Flyte's Aloysius, so perhaps Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited remains the best starting point for anyone seeking to fathom these complexities.


Brideshead Revisited: Sebastian, Aloysius, & Charles (1981)


As a mere colonial, I fear that I'm outside all that (or beneath it, as my old friend Martin Frost was wont to remark). Leaving that to one side, though, rereading Summoned by Bells also reminded me of the bibliographical complexities that surround Betjeman's (so-called) Collected Poems, in its various incarnations.



Why, for instance, in the latest (2006) edition of this much revised and expanded book, does the poem "Cricket Master" appear twice, at the end of High and Low (1966) and then again as an addendum to Summoned by Bells?


John Betjeman: Collected Poems (2006)


In his Guardian review of the above volume, poet and editor Anthony Thwaite complained:
In his introduction, [Andrew] Motion ... says that "there is still a lack of academic interest in his work ... and no properly edited edition of his poems". You can say that again. For many years, including in his lifetime, Betjeman, in spite of the superficial elegance of production of his books, was textually mangled - in minor ways, true; but in a poem every detail matters. In a review of the 1958 Collected Poems (the book that famously sold in its hundreds of thousands), Philip Larkin commented: "I hereby offer to correct the proofs of Betjeman's next book of poems for nothing, if that is the only way to protect them from such blemishes". (He cited the perpetuation of "Chirst" for "Christ" and "that I wanted" instead of "what I wanted".)
I don't know whose fault such things were or are: I have the feeling that Betjeman was a careless proof-reader. For many years, the final stanza of his marvellously chilling poem of childhood dread, "NW5 and N6", was marred by a full stop missing at the end of the penultimate line: it has at least been put right in this edition. But there are several niggling errors in the book too: a stray lower-case for upper-case in the last line of "Thoughts in a Train", a comma instead of a full stop in "Before the Lecture". Something has gone wrong with the punctuation in the middle of "An Ecumenical Invitation", and again in the second stanza of "To Stuart Piggott".
... As for the gaps, they lie at both ends, poems missing from Betjeman's first two books (Mount Zion, 1931, and Continual Dew, 1937), and retrievals from his laureate years. It's surely a pity, in Collected Poems, to omit such early sportive pieces as "School Song", "The Garden City" or "Tea with the Poets" ("Tucking in at whipped cream walnuts, / Blue shorts bursting under green, / C Day Lewis brings his wolf cubs / Safe into the full canteen").
For completeness, too, there should be room for Betjeman's honest and dutiful efforts on official occasions, such as his poem for Prince Charles's wedding to Lady Diana in 1981, however sadly it reads now: it's certainly no worse than some of Ted Hughes's laureate verses.
Betjeman, altogether, is so good, and so important (a judgment at which he would no doubt have guffawed), that John Murray, the firm that has for so many years published his work and benefited from its large sales, should put in hand a properly edited full-scale edition of his poems, in a handsome uniform typeface (the variations in the present book are ugly) and on good paper, not nasty, already yellowing stuff.


This situation doesn't seem to have been redressed as yet, but we live in hope. Perhaps Kevin J. Gardner's book of "New and Uncollected Poems", Harvest Bells, will fill the more obvious gaps. It'd be better to have something reasonably definitive to rely on, though.




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Martin Jennings: John Betjeman at St Pancras Station (2012)

John Betjeman
(1906-1984)

    Poetry:

  1. Mount Zion (1931)
    • Mount Zion; or, In Touch with the Infinite. Illustrated by de Cronin Hastings et al. 1931. Poetry Reprint Series, 4. London: St. James Press / New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975.
  2. Continual Dew, a Little Book of Bourgeois Verse (1937)
  3. [as 'Epsilon'] Sir John Piers (1938)
  4. Old Lights for New Chancels, Verses Topographical and Amatory (1940)
  5. New Bats in Old Belfries (1945)
  6. Slick but not Streamlined. Introduction by W. H. Auden (1947)
  7. Selected Poems. Preface by John Sparrow (1948)
  8. St. Katherine's Church, Chiselhampton, Oxfordshire: Verses Turned in Aid of a Public Subscription towards the Restoration of the Church (1950)
  9. A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954)
  10. Poems in the Porch (1954)
    • Poems in the Porch. Illustrated by John Piper. S. P. C. K. Saffron Waldon, Essex: The Talbot Press, 1954.
  11. Collected Poems. Ed. the Earl of Birkenhead (1958)
    • John Betjeman’s Collected Poems: Enlarged Edition. Ed. The Earl of Birkenhead. 1958, 1962. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., 1970.
    • Collected Poems. Ed. The Earl of Birkenhead. 1958, 1962, 1970, 1979. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., 1989.
    • Collected Poems. 1958. Introduction by Andrew Motion. John Murray (Publishers). London: Hodder Headline, 2006.
  12. John Betjeman [selected poems] (1958)
  13. Lament for Moira McCavendish [limited edition of 20 copies] (c. 1958–59)
  14. Summoned by Bells (1960)
    • Summoned by Bells. 1960. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd. / Readers Union Ltd., 1962.
    • The Illustrated Summoned by Bells. 1960. Paintings and Sketches by Hugh Casson. 1989. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd. / The Herbert Press, 1995.
  15. A Ring of Bells (1962)
  16. High and Low (1966)
  17. Six Betjeman Songs (1967)
  18. A Wembley Lad and The Crem (1971)
  19. A Nip in the Air (1974)
    • A Nip in the Air. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., 1974.
  20. Betjeman in Miniature: Selected Poems of Sir John Betjeman (1976)
  21. The Best of Betjeman. Ed. John Guest (1978)
    • The Best of Betjeman. Ed. John Guest. London: John Murray / Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.
  22. Five Betjeman Songs (1980)
  23. Ode on the Marriage of HRH Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer [limited edition of 125 copies] (1980)
  24. Church Poems (1981)
  25. Uncollected Poems (1982)
  26. Betjeman's Cornwall (1984)
  27. Ah Middlesex [limited edition of 250 copies] (1984)
  28. Harvest Bells: New and Uncollected Poems. Ed. Kevin J. Gardner (2019)

    29. Non-fiction:

  29. Ghastly Good Taste (1933)
  30. Devon. Shell Guides series (1936)
  31. An Oxford University Chest. Photographs by László Moholy-Nagy. Illustrations by Osbert Lancaster & Edward Bradley (1938)
    • An Oxford University Chest. Illustrated by L. Moholy-Nagy, Osbert Lancaster, the Rev. Edward Bradley et al. 1938. Oxford Paperbacks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
  32. [with Hugh Casson] A Handbook on Paint (1939)
  33. Antiquarian Prejudice (1939)
  34. Vintage London (1942)
  35. English Cities and Small Towns (1943)
  36. John Piper (1944)
  37. [with C. S. Lewis et al.] Five Sermons by Laymen (1946)
  38. [with John Piper] Murray's Buckinghamshire Architectural Guide (1948)
  39. [with John Piper] Murray's Berkshire Architectural Guide (1949)
  40. [with L. V. Grinsell, H. B. Wells & H. S. Tallamy] Studies in the History of Swindon (1950)
  41. Shropshire – with maps and illustrations. Shell Guides series (1951)
  42. The English Scene (1951)
  43. First and Last Loves (1952)
    • First and Last Loves. Drawings by John Piper. 1952. A Grey Arrow. London: Arrow Books Ltd., 1960.
  44. Gala Day London (1953)
  45. The English Town in the Last Hundred Years [The Rede Lecture] (1956)
  46. Some Immortal Hours (1957)
  47. Collins Guide to English Parish Churches, including the Isle of Man (1958)
  48. [as "Richard M Farren"] Ground Plan to City Skyline (1960)
  49. Clifton College Buildings (1962)
  50. [with Basil Clarke] English Churches (1964)
  51. The City of London Churches. Pitkin Pride of Britain series (1965)
  52. Collins Pocket Guide to English Parish Churches. 2 vols (1968)
  53. Victorian and Edwardian London From Old Photographs (1969)
  54. Ten Wren Churches [limited edition of 100 copies] (1970)
  55. [with J. S. Gray] Victorian and Edwardian Brighton From Old Photographs (1971)
  56. A Pictorial History of English Architecture (1972)
  57. London's Historic Railway Stations (1972)
  58. [with David Vaisey] Victorian and Edwardian Oxford From Old Photographs (1972)
  59. West Country Churches (1973)
  60. A Plea for Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street (1974)
  61. [with A. L. Rowse] Victorian and Edwardian Cornwall From Old Photographs (1974)
  62. Archie and the Strict Baptists (1977)
  63. Metro-land (1977)
  64. John Betjeman: Coming Home (1997)
    • Coming Home: An Anthology of His Prose 1920-1977. Ed. Candida Lycett Green. Methuen. London: Random House, 1997.
  65. Trains and Buttered Toast: Betjeman's best BBC radio talks. Ed. Stephen Games (2006)
  66. Tennis Whites and Teacakes: An anthology of Betjeman's prose, verse and occasional writing. Ed. Stephen Games (2007)
  67. Sweet Songs of Zion: Betjeman's radio programmes about English hymn-writing. Ed. Stephen Games (2007)
  68. Betjeman's England: Betjeman's best topographical television programmes. Ed. Stephen Games (2009)

    69. Edited:

  69. Cornwall Illustrated. Shell Guides series (1934)
  70. [with Geoffrey Taylor] English Scottish and Welsh Landscape 1700–1860 (1944)
    • English Scottish & Welsh Landscape: 1700-c.1860. Ed. John Betjeman & Geoffrey Taylor. With Original Lithographs by John Piper. New Excursions into English Poetry. Ed. W. J. Turner & Sheila Shannon. London: Frederick Muller Ltd., 1944.
  71. Watergate Children's Classics (1947)
  72. [with Geoffrey Taylor] English Love Poems (1957)
  73. An American's Guide to English Parish Churches, Including the Isle of Man (1958)
  74. Altar and Pew: Church of England Verses (1959)
  75. Charles Tennyson Turner: A Hundred Sonnets (1960)
  76. [with Winnifred Hindley] A Wealth of Poetry (1963)
  77. John Masefield: Selected Poems (1978)
    • John Masefield: Selected Poems. Preface by John Betjeman. London: Book Club Associates, 1978.

    78. Letters:

  78. John Betjeman's Letters: Volume One. Ed. Candida Lycett Green (1994)
  79. John Betjeman's Letters: Volume Two. Ed. Candida Lycett Green (1995)


    80. Secondary:

  80. Hillier, Bevis, ed. John Betjeman: A Life in Pictures. London: John Murray (Publishers ) Ltd. / The Herbert Press Ltd., 1984.
  81. Hillier, Bevis. Young Betjeman. 1988. London: Cardinal Books, 1989.
  82. Hillier, Bevis. John Betjeman: New Fame, New Love. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., 2002.
  83. Hillier, Bevis. Betjeman: The Bonus of Laughter. 2004. Hodder Headline. London: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., 2005.




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Thursday

Acquisitions (26): Norton Annotated Editions



Norton Annotated Editions (2000- ?)
[listed 18 August, 2019]:


For a long time now I've been collecting annotated editions of the classics: I suppose ever since I found a nice copy of William Baring-Gould's Annotated Sherlock Holmes in the shop-window of David Thomas's shop on Lorne St, for the very reasonable price of $40!

Baring-Gould, William S., ed. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Four Novels and the Fifty-Six Short Stories Complete, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 2 vols. 1967. London: John Murray, 1968.



There's a nice piece on the subject called For Love of Books: Norton Annotated Editions, posted by Erik Beck on 7 August, 2010.

[NB: I'd also, now - in 2024 - recommend Grace Lapointe's more recent article "How are Annotated Editions of Books Made?, Book Riot (23/8/22), as well as Jill O'Neill's "The Serious Reader: Scholarship and Annotated Editions", The Scholarly Kitchen (10/11/23)].

Erik Beck provides a useful list of the original annotated series published by Clarkson N. Potter - and their associated imprint Bramhall House - starting with Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice in 1960, and concluding with Edward Guiliano & Philip Collins's Annotated Dickens a quarter century later, in 1986.

As usual, I've marked the ones I own copies of in bold:
  1. The Annotated Alice, ed. Martin Gardner (1960)
  2. The Annotated Mother Goose, ed. William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould (1962)
  3. The Annotated Snark, ed. Martin Gardner (1962)
  4. The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ed. Philip Van Doren Stern (1964)
  5. The Annotated Ancient Mariner, ed. Martin Gardner (1965)
  6. The Annotated Casey at the Bat, ed. Martin Gardner (1967)
  7. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, ed. William S. Baring-Gould, 2 vols (1967)
    1. from The Early Holmes (c. 1874-1887)
    2. to An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes (c.1889-1914)
  8. The Annotated Walden, ed. Philip Van Doren Stern (1970)
  9. The Annotated Wizard of Oz, ed. Michael Patrick Hearn (1973)
  10. The Annotated Dracula, ed. Leonard Wolf (1975)
  11. The Annotated Christmas Carol, ed. Michael Patrick Hearn (1977)
  12. The Annotated Frankenstein, ed. Leonard Wolf (1977)
  13. The Annotated Shakespeare, ed. A. L. Rowse, 3 vols (1978)
    1. Comedies
    2. Histories and Poems
    3. Tragedies and Romances
  14. The Annotated Gulliver’s Travels, ed. Isaac Asimov (1980)
  15. The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, ed. Michael Patrick Hearn (1981)
  16. The Annotated Oscar Wilde, ed. H. Montgomery Hyde (1982)
  17. The Annotated Dickens, ed. Edward Guiliano & Philip Collins, 2 vols (1986)
    1. The Pickwick Papers / Oliver Twist / A Christmas Carol / Hard Times
    2. David Copperfield / A Tale of Two Cities / Great Expectations

  1. Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. Illustrated by John Tenniel. 1865 & 1871. Ed. Martin Gardner. Bramhall House. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1960.
    2. Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. Illustrations by John Tenniel. 1865 & 1871. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1960. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.


    Martin Gardner (1914-2020)



  2. Baring-Gould, William S. & Ceil Baring-Gould. The Annotated Mother Goose: Nursery Rhymes Old and New, Arranged and Explained. Illustrated by Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, Maxfield Parrish, and Early Historical Woodcuts. With Chapter Decorations by E. M. Simon. New York: Bramhall House, 1962.
    3. Baring-Gould, William S. & Ceil. The Annotated Mother Goose: Nursery Rhymes Old and New, Arranged and Explained. 1962. New York: New American Library, 1967.




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    Martin Gardner: The Annotated Snark (1962)


  3. Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Snark: The Hunting of the Snark – An Agony in Eight Fits. Illustrations by Henry Holiday. 1876. Ed. Martin Gardner. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962.
    4. Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Snark: The Hunting of the Snark – An Agony in Eight Fits. Illustrations by Henry Holiday. 1876. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1962. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.

    Carroll, Lewis. The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits. Illustrated by Henry Holiday. 1876. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1962. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995.

  4. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin. 1852. Ed. Philip van Doren Stern. Bramhall House. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1964.




  5. Gardner, Martin, ed. The Annotated Ancient Mariner: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1798. Illustrations by Gustave Doré. 1798. London: Anthony Blond Limited, 1965.
    6. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Annotated Ancient Mariner: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Illustrations by Gustave Doré. 1798. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1965. A Meridian Book. New York: New American Library, 1974.

    Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Annotated Ancient Mariner: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Illustrations by Gustave Doré. 1798. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1965. 2nd ed. New York: Prometheus Books, 2003.

  6. Thayer, Ernest Lawrence. The Annotated Casey at the Bat: A Collection of Ballads about the Mighty Casey. 1888. Ed. Martin Gardner. Bramhall House. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1967.
    7. Thayer, Ernest Lawrence. The Annotated Casey at the Bat: A Collection of Ballads about the Mighty Casey. 1888. Ed. Martin Gardner. Bramhall House. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1967.


  7. Baring-Gould, William S., ed. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Four Novels and the Fifty-Six Short Stories Complete, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1967.
    • Vol. 1 - from The Early Holmes (c. 1874-1887)
    • Vol. 2 - to An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes (c.1889-1914)
    8. Baring-Gould, William S., ed. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Four Novels and the Fifty-Six Short Stories Complete, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 2 vols. 1967. London: John Murray, 1968.

  8. Baring-Gould, William S., ed. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Four Novels and the Fifty-Six Short Stories Complete, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 1967. First Single Volume Edition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.

  9. Thoreau, Henry David. The Annotated Walden: Walden; or, Life in the Woods, together with “Civil Disobedience,” a Detailed Chronology and Various Pieces about its author, the Writing and Publishing of the Book. Ed. Philip van Doren Stern. New York: Bramhall House, 1970.
    10. Thoreau, Henry David. The Annotated Walden: Walden; or, Life in the Woods, together with “Civil Disobedience,” a Detailed Chronology and Various Pieces about its author, the Writing and Publishing of the Book. 1854. Ed. Philip van Doren Stern. Bramhall House. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1970.


  10. Hearn, Michael Patrick, ed. The Annotated Wizard of Oz: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. Pictures in Color by W. W. Denslow. 1900. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1973.




  11. Wolf, Leonard, ed. The Annotated Dracula: Dracula by Bram Stoker. 1897. Art by Sätty. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. / Publisher, 1975.



    12. Leonard Wolf (1923-2019)



  12. Hearn, Michael Patrick, ed. The Annotated Christmas Carol: A Christmas Carol in Prose, by Charles Dickens. 1843. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1977.


  13. Shelley, Mary. The Annotated Frankenstein. 1818. Ed. Leonard Wolf. Art by Marcia Huyette. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1977.


  14. Shakespeare, William. The Annotated Shakespeare: The Comedies, Histories, Sonnets and Other Poems, Tragedies and Romances Complete. Ed. A. L. Rowse. 3 vols. London: Orbis Publishing Limited, 1978.
    1. The Annotated Shakespeare - Complete Works Illustrated: Comedies
    2. The Annotated Shakespeare - Complete Works Illustrated: Histories and Poems
    3. The Annotated Shakespeare - Complete Works Illustrated: Tragedies and Romances
    15. Shakespeare, William. The Annotated Shakespeare: The Comedies, Histories, Sonnets and Other Poems, Tragedies and Romances Complete. Ed. A. L. Rowse. 3 vols. 1978. 2nd ed. London: Orbis Publishing Limited, 1979.
    1. Comedies
    2. Histories and Poems
    3. Tragedies and Romances


    A. L. Rowse (1903-1997)



  15. Swift, Jonathan. The Annotated Gulliver's Travels: Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift. 1726 / 1734 / 1896. Ed. Isaac Asimov. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. / Publishers, 1980.



    16. Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)



  16. Hearn, Michael Patrick, ed. The Annotated Huckleberry Finn: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Illustrated by E. W. Kemble. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1981.


  17. Wilde, Oscar. The Annotated Oscar Wilde: Poems, Fiction, Plays, Lectures, Essays, and Letters. Ed. H. Montgomery Hyde. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1982.



    18. H. Montgomery Hyde (1907-1989)



  18. Dickens, Charles. The Annotated Dickens. Ed. Edward Guiliano & Philip Collins. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.
    • The Pickwick Papers (1836-37); Oliver Twist (1837-39); A Christmas Carol (1843); Hard Times (1854)
    • David Copperfield (1849-50); A Tale of Two Cities (1859); Great Expectations (1860-61)



Philip Collins (1923-2007)




Edward Guiliano (1950- )



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Martin Gardner: The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown (1987)
The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown: The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton. 1911. Ed. Martin Gardner. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

I don't really know how complete this list can be said to be. Many of Martin Gardner's annotated editions appeared from other publishers, so are not strictly part of the Clarkson N. Potter canon:
  1. The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown: G. K. Chesterton's "The Innocence of Father Brown" (Oxford: OUP, 1987)
  2. The Annotated Night Before Christmas: A Collection of Sequels, Parodies & Imitations of Clement Moore's Immortal Ballad About Santa Claus (New York: Summit, 1991)
  3. The Annotated Thursday: G. K. Chesterton's Masterpiece "The Man Who Was Thursday" (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999)

Martin Gardner: The Annotated Night Before Christmas (1991)
The Annotated Night Before Christmas: A Collection of Sequels, Parodies & Imitations of Clement Moore's Immortal Ballad About Santa Claus. 1823. Ed. Martin Gardner. Summit Books. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1991.

But then, the same is true of The Annotated Snark, above, published by Simon & Schuster rather than Potter or Bramhall House. So perhaps the true number of works in the series should be 16 rather than 17.


Martin Gardner: The Annotated Thursday (1999)
G. K. Chesterton. The Annotated Thursday: G. K. Chesterton’s Masterpiece The Man Who Was Thursday. 1908. Ed. Martin Gardner. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999.

In any case, of the 17 titles actually listed above, I estimate that I own 13 (Alice, Mother Goose, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Casey at the Bat, Sherlock Holmes, Walden , Dracula, Frankenstein, Shakespeare, Gulliver’s Travels, Oscar Wilde, and Dickens) in the original hardback editions; I also have four (Alice, Mother Goose, The Hunting of the Snark, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) in paperback reprints.

More to the point, I own all five of the books which have been reprinted in revised and updated Norton editions (Alice, The Wizard of Oz, Huckleberry Finn, A Christmas Carol, and The Hunting of the Snark), as detailed below:



Around the turn of the millennium, a decade after the original series had gone out of print, W. W. Norton decided to revive it, and started to republish revised versions of some of the original titles, along with new annotated editions of their own, starting with Maria Tatar's Classic Fairy Tales in 2002. This is where they've got to so far:
  1. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, ed. Martin Gardner (1999)
    • The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, ed. Martin Gardner & Mark Burstein (2015)
  2. The Annotated Wizard of Oz, ed. Michael Patrick Hearn (2000)
  3. The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, ed. Michael Patrick Hearn (2001)
  4. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar (2002)
  5. The Annotated Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar (2004)
  6. The Annotated Christmas Carol, ed. Michael Patrick Hearn (2004)
  7. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, ed. Leslie S. Klinger, 3 vols (2005-6)
    1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes & The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (2005)
    2. The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow & The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (2005)
    3. A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear (2006)
  8. The Annotated Hunting of the Snark, ed. Martin Gardner (2006)
  9. The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. & Hollis Robbins (2007)
  10. The Annotated Secret Garden, ed. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (2007)
  11. The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, ed. Maria Tatar & Julie K. Allen (2007)
  12. The New Annotated Dracula, ed. Leslie S. Klinger (2008)
  13. The Annotated Wind in the Willows, ed. Annie Gauger (2009)
  14. The Annotated Peter Pan, ed. Maria Tatar (2011)
  15. The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, ed. Leslie S. Klinger (2014)
  16. The Annotated Little Women, ed. John Matteson (2015)
  17. The New Annotated Frankenstein, ed. Leslie S. Klinger (2017)
  18. The Annotated African American Folktales, ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. & Maria Tatar (2018)
  19. The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway, ed. Merve Emre (2021)
  20. The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1001 Nights, ed. Paulo Lemos Horta (2021)


  1. Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. Illustrations by John Tenniel. 1865 & 1871. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1960 & 1990. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1999.
    2. Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. Illustrations by John Tenniel. 1865 & 1871. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1960, 1990, 2000. London: Penguin, 2001.
    Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. Illustrations by John Tenniel. 1865 & 1871. Ed. Martin Gardner & Mark Burstein. 1960, 1990 & 1999. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2015.

    Mark Burstein (1950- )



  2. Baum, L. Frank. The Annotated Wizard of Oz: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Pictures by W. W. Denslow. 1900. Ed. Michael Patrick Hearn. 1973. Centennial Edition. Preface by Martin Gardner. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000.


  3. Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens). The Annotated Huckleberry Finn: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade). Illustrations by E. W. Kemble. 1884. Ed. Michael Patrick Hearn. 1981. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2001.


  4. Tatar, Maria, ed & trans. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002.



    5. Maria Tatar (1945- )



  5. Grimm, Jacob & Wilhelm. The Annotated Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. Ed & trans. Maria Tatar. Introduction by A. S. Byatt. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004.


  6. Dickens, Charles. The Annotated Christmas Carol: A Christmas Carol in Prose. Illustrations by John Leech. 1843. Ed. Michael Patrick Hearn. 1976. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2004.


  7. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, 3 vols (2005-6)
    • Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Vol. 1: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes & The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. 1892 & 1894. Ed. Leslie S. Klinger. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2005.
    • Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Vol. 2: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow & The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. 1905, 1917 & 1927. Ed. Leslie S. Klinger. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2005.
    • Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Vol. 3: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Valley of Fear. 1887, 1890, 1902 & 1915. Ed. Leslie S. Klinger. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2006.




  8. Carroll, Lewis. The Annotated Hunting of the Snark: The Definitive Edition. Illustrated by Henry Holiday. 1876. Ed. Martin Gardner. 1962. Introduction by Adam Gopnik. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2006.


  9. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 1852. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. & Hollis Robbins. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2007.





    10. Hollis Robbins (1963- )



  10. Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Annotated Secret Garden. 1911. Ed. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2007.




  11. Tatar, Maria, ed. The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen. Trans. Maria Tatar & Julie K. Allen. Introduction by A. S. Byatt. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007.




  12. Stoker, Bram. The New Annotated Dracula. 1897. Edited by Leslie S. Klinger. Additional Research by Janet Byrne. Introduction by Neil Gaiman. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Inc., 2008.


  13. Grahame, Kenneth. The Annotated Wind in the Willows. 1908. Ed. Annie Gauger. Introduction by Brian Jacques. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2009.




  14. Barrie, J. M. The Annotated Peter Pan: Centennial Edition. 1911. Ed. Maria Tatar. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.


  15. Klinger, Leslie S., ed. The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft. Introduction by Alan Moore. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2014.


  16. Klinger, Leslie S., ed. The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham. Introduction by Victor LaValle. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2019.


  17. Alcott, Louisa May. The Annotated Little Women. 1868-69. Ed. John Matteson. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2015.



    18. John Matteson (1961- )



  18. Shelley, Mary. The New Annotated Frankenstein: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. 1818. Rev. ed. 1831. Ed. Leslie S. Klinger. Introduction by Guillermo del Toro. Afterword by Anne K. Mellor. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Inc., 2017.


  19. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. & Maria Tatar, ed. The Annotated African American Folktales. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.


  20. Woolf, Virginia. The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway. 1925. Ed. Merve Emre. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.




  21. Horta, Paulo Lemos, ed. The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1001 Nights. Trans. Yasmine Seale. Foreword by Omar El Akkad. Afterword by Robert Irwin. Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.



    22. Gabriel Roth Horta: Paulo Lemos Horta



    Yasmine Seale (1989- )


I now have all of these. Only five of them, it should be stressed, are actually (updated) reprints: Martin Gardner's two Lewis Carroll books, The Annotated Alice and The Annotated Snark, and Michael Patrick Hearn's three annotated editions of, respectively, L. Frank Baum, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain. The others are either entirely new projects, or else re-edited versions of classics such as Sherlock Holmes and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

These first three of these 'repeats' - Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and Frankenstein - are included in completely new versions by the terrifyingly prolific Leslie S. Klinger. Uncle Tom’s Cabin has also been fully re-visioned to accommodate the cultural changes of the past few decades. Whether each of them is an improvement on its original is a matter of taste. Not in all cases, I'd say, but perhaps that's because I'm still so much in thrall to William S. Baring-Gould's eccentric masterpiece, The Annotated Sherlock Holmes.



The competition can get a bit baroque at times, though. I once wrote a long blogpost on the strange world of the competing annotated versions of Dracula. Leslie S. Klinger's - with its weird convention of pretending that all of the events in the story actually happened - is certainly not the pick of that particular bunch:



Raymond McNally & Radu Florescu, ed.: The Essential Dracula (1979)


  1. Wolf, Leonard, ed. The Annotated Dracula: Dracula by Bram Stoker. 1897. Art by Sätty. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. / Publisher, 1975.
  2. McNally, Raymond & Radu Florescu, ed. The Essential Dracula: A Completely Illustrated & Annotated Edition of Bram Stoker’s Classic Novel. 1897. New York: Mayflower Books, 1979.
  3. Wolf, Leonard, ed. The Essential Dracula: Including the Complete Novel by Bram Stoker. 1897. Ed. Leonard Wolf. 1975. Notes, Bibliography and Filmography Revised in Collaboration with Roxana Stuart. Illustrations by Christopher Bing. A Byron Preiss Book. New York: Plume, 1993.
  4. Stoker, Bram. The New Annotated Dracula. 1897. Edited by Leslie S. Klinger. Additional Research by Janet Byrne. Introduction by Neil Gaiman. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Inc., 2008.



Leonard Wolf, ed.: The Essential Dracula (1993)


Another Leonard Wolf title complementary to The Annotated Dracula and The Annotated Frankenstein is his Essential Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2005), subtitled 'The Definitive Annotated Edition':



Leonard Wolf, ed.: The Essential Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2005)

Leonard Wolf, ed. The Essential Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Including the Complete Novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Illustrations by Michael Lark. 1995. New York: ibooks, 2005.


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Annie Gauger, ed.: The Annotated Wind in the Willows (2009)


Then there was the knock-down battle of the Winds in the Willows (or should that be The Wind in the Willowses?). Two annotated versions appeared within months of each other - more-or-less in the centenary year of the Kenneth Grahame's immortal masterpiece. For all its faults, I'd have to award the crown to Annie Gauger's version there for sheer inclusiveness, but there is a quiet dignity - though perhaps too great a dependence on dictionary definitions of fairly familiar terms - to the Seth Lerer book:

  1. Grahame, Kenneth. The Annotated Wind in the Willows. 1908. Ed. Annie Gauger. Introduction by Brian Jacques. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2009.
  2. Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows: An Annotated Edition. 1908. Ed. Seth Lerer. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.





There's always been a small number of odd annotated editions appearing from other publishers, whether or not they could be said to constitute a 'series.' Here are a pair of Jules Verne novels:

  1. Verne, Jules. The Annotated Jules Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. The Only Completely Restored and Annotated Edition. ['Vingt mille lieues sous les mers', 1869-70]. Ed. Walter James Miller. New York: Thomas J. Crowell, Publishers, 1976.
  2. Verne, Jules. The Annotated Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon - Direct in Ninety-seven Hours and 20 Minutes. The Only Completely Rendered and Annotated Edition. ['De la Terre à la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes', 1865]. Ed. & trans. Walter James Miller. New York: Thomas J. Crowell, Publishers, 1978.





And here are a couple of American children's classics:

  1. Juster, Norton. The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth. Illustrated by Jules Feiffer. 1961. Ed. Leonard S. Marcus. Knopf Books for Young Readers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
  2. White, E. B. The Annotated Charlotte’s Web. Illustrated by Garth Williams. 1952. Ed. Peter F. Neumeyer. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.





And, finally, there's Douglas A. Anderson's Hobbit double-act. Of this, Erik Beck comments:
As an interesting side note, back in the late 80’s, The Annotated Hobbit was published. It later went out of print, but was re-printed and updated in 2002. It was perfect timing, of course, because interest in Tolkien was peaking due to the films. But, it’s interesting to note that the new version looks curiously like the Norton books, even though it’s printed by Houghton Mifflin.
  1. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Annotated Hobbit: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. 1937. Ed. Douglas A. Anderson. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
  2. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Annotated Hobbit: Revised and Expanded Edition. 1937. Ed. Douglas A. Anderson. 1988. Rev. ed. 2002. London: HarperCollins, 2003.




There's clearly much more to be said on the subject, and many more - hopefully - of these handsome (and definitely addictive!) tomes to be collected. I'm glad to be able to build on Erik Beck's very useful work nearly a decade on from his original post, however.


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