FOR the genesis of my book, An Introduction to the Study of Introductions, I am principally indebted to my psychiatrist, Dr. Adolphus Peters, of Amsterdam. Having occasion to consult him about an irritating obsessive compulsion, which took the form of an inability to skip the introductory pages of any serious work that fell into my hands, I was at first repelled by his suggestion that instead of resisting the compulsion I embrace it and, by making a careful analysis of these preliminary throat-clearings, get them, in his homely phrase, out of my system. He persisted, however. Imagination gradually took fire, and now, some fifteen years later, it is a pleasure as well as a duty to record my gratitude to one but for whom I might still be unable to get as far as Chapter 1 of any book, not least my own.
A brief explanation is necessary to delineate the limits I have set myself in this inquiry. Forewords, not being in general the work of the writers whose books they seek to illumine or confute, I decided to omit, except insofar as they are referred to with gratification (see Chapter 9 passim) by the actual authors in their Introductions. The Prefatory Note has, of course, already been the subject of a scholarly monograph by Herr Emil Strohler, while the history and development of Contents (including List of Plates) will always be associated with the name of Silas R. Wisehammer, of Wisconsin. On these well-tilled fields I had no wish to trespass. Surprisingly little attention appears to have been paid to the Introduction proper, even the Germans having contented themselves with some rather cursory statistics, without any attempt to evaluate Introductions as an art form or to inquire into density of readership, recurrent phraseology, the omission quotient, and kindred matters of importance to the prolegomenist. I make no apology therefore for attempting to fulfill a want so ably categorized by Miss Phyllis Ash-baker, B.Sc. (who has given freely of her storehouse of specialized knowledge in a Foreword to this volume that I can never hope adequately to acknowledge), as “long felt.”
Particular attention has been paid to Acknowledgments, since these form at once the most universal and the least understood feature of Introductions. Of some 87,000 persons individually thanked for their help in the 5,319 Introductions it has been my good fortune to read and analyze, I have been in touch with rather more than half—a labor of love that seemed to me essential, as it is from their ranks that the Introduction readership proved to be almost totally drawn. I desire to thank them all again here, but have been compelled, in order to avoid over-weighting this Introduction, to take the unorthodox course of relegating their names to Appendix III. (No such comprehensive list of generous advisers, unstinting critics, laborious proofreaders, owners of hitherto unpublished mss. to which they most kindly gave access, and patient wives, drawn from every field of life and learning, from the preparation of soufflés to a new interpretation of the Gilgamesh Epic, has, it is believed, ever been compiled before.)* If I single out Dr. Wilbur H. Gumshott, of the Institute of Anthropology in Boston, it is only because the telephone conversation I had with him well illustrates the invaluable sidelights on my subject afforded me by personal contact with my many helpers:
MYSELF: Have I the good fortune to be speaking to, or with, Dr. Wilbur H. Gumshott, who gave unstintingly of his unrivaled insight into Peruvian wedding rites during the preparation of Chapter 17 of Mildred Worthington’s South American Rhapsody?
DR. G.: Who is this?
MYSELF: I have been entrusted, though fully conscious that there must be many better qualified both by—
DR. G.: Are you aware, sir, whoever you are, that it is three o’clock in the morning, Eastern Standard Time?
MYSELF: I trust it is not an inconvenient moment. The fact is that I have already made calls in the same connection to your colleagues Professor T. R. McGluskey, Mr. Alfred Bains, Mr. Aloysius Mannering, and Dr. Bernard Hackslip, as well as to Miss Freda Staring, the acknowledged authority on the Puelche of Araucania, and to the librarian of the School of Amer-Indian Studies in Beirut, but for whose unfailing encouragement and advice—
DR. G.: That bunch! What Hackslip knows about Peru wouldn’t cover half a file card.
MYSELF: Thank you. That certainly sheds fresh light. I see, however, that the acknowledgment to him and the other colleagues I have mentioned begins “I am particularly grateful,” whereas for yourself and Professor Richard A. Butterstone, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, the phrase “I also desire to thank” was deemed appropriate. May I have your comments on that?
DR. G.: I have nothing to say.
MYSELF: Bearing in mind that the even warmer “I owe a very great debt of gratitude” is reserved for Miss Mabel Gilchrist on this page—
DR. G.: Never heard of her.
MYSELF: She gave invaluable assistance with the typing, thus taking her place on my secretarial ranking list second only to those eleven hundred and forty-eight devoted women whose untiring skill and patience in unraveling what was often, the authors fear, a sadly illegible—
DR. G.: Why don’t you bother the people who write all this rubbish, and leave me alone? I have to get some sleep.
THE question raised by Dr. Gumshott is of some importance. I did, of course, apply direct to some thousands of authors whose prolegomenorrhea (the word was coined for me by my friend Charlie Pyke, B.A., who also drew my attention to the delicate interplay of colon and semicolon in a brilliant list of helpers cited by an otherwise obscure Swedish geophysicist) had brought them within my purview, but the response was not uniformly encouraging. This despite the fact that I was able in many cases to inform them of points of interest of which they themselves appeared to be unaware. Thus, I was the first to advise Mr. Karl Strummholtz that in singling out for special mention in the Introduction to his Volcanoes in Antiquity no less than seventy-five friends and colleagues, fifteen universities or other institutes, the mother superior of a nunnery, three typists, his publisher, five proofreaders, and both his first and second wives (who “cheerfully bore”) he had established a record for scientific works outside the field of ornithology. Others had not even troubled to reflect that, by removing their acknowledgments to a separate section headed “Acknowledgments,” they ran the risk of reducing their Introduction readership to nil, apart from psychopaths like myself. In volunteering information, in their turn, I found writers uncoöperative to such a degree that I feel unable to thank more than three hundred and seventy of them by name (Appendix IV). To a simple written questionnaire requesting answers to such inquiries as
In the preparation of your Introductions, by what authors have you been especially influenced; e.g., as to style, presentation, addition of “Majorca, 1967” at the end, etc.?
Have you acknowledged this debt?
Who is this Lady Alice Brackenbury who so kindly translated the Chinese quatrain on this page?
What do you mean, exactly, by “unsparing”?
For every half-dozen colleagues gratified by a mention, how many took immortal umbrage from (a) total omission, or (b) the “lumping” technique?
most authors did not bother to reply. Of those who did, a disappointingly high proportion complained that only the preliminary pages of their books appeared to have been read. This attitude, as between specialists, struck me as inexplicable.
It only remains to add that in the final stages of this work I have been sustained by the Vicar, by a certain Mrs. Potter (or possibly Cotter), of Exeter, who, in the act of measuring my settee for a new slipcover, inadvertently or intentionally made off with three pages from Chapter 2, and by so indefatigable an army of other critics that I have reluctantly been forced to hold their names over to an additional Appendix (V). Nevertheless, any errors and omissions remain entirely mine, and for this sole residuum of my labors I am profoundly grateful.
The Channel Islands,
Wednesday
1969
*This parenthesis took the form of a footnote in my original draft, but it was unsparingly pointed out to me by Mr. Wilberforce Butt, O.B.E.,** who most generously read through the greater part of these preliminary pages, that the use of footnotes in Introductions is atypical—except for such unavoidable addenda as “e.g.” **Now Sir Wilberforce Butt, K.B.E.