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Re: McGraw-Hill ADA (fwd)
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From: SarahFunke@aol.com
Vivian's handy index was added in the Penguin edition, 1970 (Juliar A40.4;
1991 update).
That edition has a few other interesting points:
Their bio of VN states his year of birth as 1901, instead of 1899.
VN was, in his own words, "exasperat[ed]" by the faults in the proofs of this
edition, and more so by the publisher's failure to make all his changes. In
1971 he voiced the hope that a new publisher would "insist that Penguin
fulfill their obligation and destroy…all other existing domestic edition
copies which still harbor on p. 257 the wretched 'she was pregnant' instead
of the correct 'he was pregnant,'" among their other errors (April 27, 1971).
His comments on their drafted cover art merit quoting, too:
"Your artist's Cyprideum looks like a ghastly vulva, and the Puss Moth
caterpillar is all wrong (and, moreover, does not breed on orchids). I am
emphatically against this symbolic design. I want three or four
non-anatomical genuine orchids, prettily colored, garlanded around "ADA". Why
don't you simply use the drawing of the three species I made for you-possibly
multiplying and stylizing them (but not freudianizing those innocent
blossoms)?
"On the other hand, if you cannot reproduce, or don't wish to bother with,
the reproduction of an elegant old-fashioned vignette for my elegant
old-fashioned novel, with delicate contours and tender tints, then I would
prefer you to cancel all idea of a pictorial design, and replace it with
plain lettering. Just my name and ADA would be enough…. (to Oliver Caldecott,
November 17, 1969)."
Perhaps more than you wanted to know.
Cheers,
Sarah Funke
Glenn Horowitz Bookseller
Vivian's handy index was added in the Penguin edition, 1970 (Juliar A40.4;
1991 update).
That edition has a few other interesting points:
Their bio of VN states his year of birth as 1901, instead of 1899.
VN was, in his own words, "exasperat[ed]" by the faults in the proofs of this
edition, and more so by the publisher's failure to make all his changes. In
1971 he voiced the hope that a new publisher would "insist that Penguin
fulfill their obligation and destroy…all other existing domestic edition
copies which still harbor on p. 257 the wretched 'she was pregnant' instead
of the correct 'he was pregnant,'" among their other errors (April 27, 1971).
His comments on their drafted cover art merit quoting, too:
"Your artist's Cyprideum looks like a ghastly vulva, and the Puss Moth
caterpillar is all wrong (and, moreover, does not breed on orchids). I am
emphatically against this symbolic design. I want three or four
non-anatomical genuine orchids, prettily colored, garlanded around "ADA". Why
don't you simply use the drawing of the three species I made for you-possibly
multiplying and stylizing them (but not freudianizing those innocent
blossoms)?
"On the other hand, if you cannot reproduce, or don't wish to bother with,
the reproduction of an elegant old-fashioned vignette for my elegant
old-fashioned novel, with delicate contours and tender tints, then I would
prefer you to cancel all idea of a pictorial design, and replace it with
plain lettering. Just my name and ADA would be enough…. (to Oliver Caldecott,
November 17, 1969)."
Perhaps more than you wanted to know.
Cheers,
Sarah Funke
Glenn Horowitz Bookseller