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Re: RARA-AVIS: Hammett bibliography
On Sun, 2 Feb 1997, E J M. Duggan wrote:
: Ah ... this is where the trouble starts. It will be difficult and
: time consuming to list the contents of every Hammett story in every
: Hammett collection, and every compilation with a Hammett story in.
: Logic suggests that a more 'do-able' project would seek to establish
: the first appearance of each item. This would, however, exclude the
: Bestseller Mystery & Jonathan Press Mystery series, as well as the
: Dell collections, as these are all reprints.
Lists of first appearances of what I'm after most of all. Reprints
are secondary, although if they're there, then so much the better.
Anyone can go to an on-line bookstore and search for what's in print.
: If the purpose of the bibliography is to list every Hammett item
: ever published (as Bill's subject line suggests: 'A full Hammett
: bibliography), then that must strive for exhaustive (-ing?)
: completion <anoraks at 100 paces?>. If the purpose is to establish
: the corpus per se, that will entail the compilation of an extensive
: listing of first periodical publication. Either method would seem
: to exclude the collections that most people (ie all but specialist
: collectors and bibliographers) would have or might know about:
: Hellman (1966) and Marcus (1974).
Probably, but average readers get curious and want to know what
they're missing. I know that every time I find a good author, or
realize someone is better than I'd thought, I immediately want to know
everything they've published. Sometimes I buy everything, sometimes I
keep a list with me for when I'm in second-hand bookstores, other
times the titles just sit in the back of my head until I eventually
forget them, then go through the process again. :)
My aim in compiling the bibliographies - and again I have to thank
everyone who's helped - is so that we all have something we can refer
to, and so that everyone else on the Internet will be able to find a
good bibliography of a writer they're interested in. Most of the
bibliographies out there are pretty awful.
Tonight I finished folding in the rest of the corrections on the
Hammett and Chandler biblios, and got Charles Willeford about half
done. (Add "rara-avis" to my URL below to get to them.) Still some
work to be done on James M. Cain.
Bill
--
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : buff@vex.net : Caveat lector.
http://www.vex.net/~buff/ <-- Anything on io.org is toast.
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