Looking at prefaces

For the modern reader, the preface, if we notice it at all, is just a few pages at the start of a book that we flick through on our way to chapter 1. Perhaps the only exception to this is if the book is written by a friend or colleague. In that case, we’re more likely to read through the preface carefully, to see whether we are amongst those who have merited a mention. In many ways, a preface is like our appendix – small, inessential, and only noticed if it causes us pain.

We check to see if we have rated a mention in the preface, because prefaces are largely about relationships. In them, we get a sense of the relationships that are important to an author, the friendships and collaborations that he or she values. While the early modern preface was often a far grander, more elaborate, and more prominent affair, it served essentially the same purpose – to highlight the importance of the author’s relationships. Sometimes, these relationships are only captured, or are most clearly captured, in prefaces. It is this that gives them their importance for historians and literary scholars.

It is only relatively recently that scholars have begun to focus on the importance of paratext – those elements of a book that do not form part of the main text, but which appear alongside it. Prefaces are one of the most common forms of paratext in early modern printed books. Not all authors included one, but many did – and sometimes they were substantial. Indeed, in some cases, the literary text seems to have been less important than the preface. The posthumous quarto of William Cartwright’s Comedies, Tragi-comedies, with other poems (1651), for example, has over one-hundred pages of prefatory matter: a frontispiece, dedication, epistle to readers, and commendatory poems from friends of the author.

In the words of Heidi Brayman Hackel, It is:

‘the business of the preface is to shape each unknown reader into a receptive, pleasant reader.’

^{Fig 1. On the left is Erasmus’ letter to John Froben in Thomas More’s De optimo reip. statu, deque noua insula Vtopia… (Basel, 1518), title verso. (Click to expand) On the right is Thomas More’s letter to Peter Giles in More’s De optimo reip. statu, deque noua insula Vtopia… (Basel, 1518). p. 17. (Click to expand) (C) Universitätsbibliothek Basel}

^{Fig 2. Hugh Sandford’s letter ‘To The Reader’, from Philip Sidney, The Countesse of Pembroke’s Arcadia. Written by Sir Philip Sidney Knight, (Dublin, 1621).}

^{Fig 3. ‘To my deare lady and sister’, from Philip Sidney, The Countesse of Pembroke’s Arcadia. Written by Sir Philip Sidney Knight, (Dublin, 1621).}

^{Fig 4. Prefatory sonnets from Edmund Spenser, The faerie qveen, (London, 1609).}

• Look at the preface of a book on your shelf. What does it tell you about the relationships that were important to the author or how s/he expects the book to be read?

Dr Mark Sweetnam, School of English, Trinity College Dublin