The Fine Art of Bibliography

[lb_lee]

Rogan: I have apparently become the kind of person who not only reads bibliographies of my own free will, but has done so enough to develop taste and critical feelings about them.

See, people (including me) usually treat bibliographies (and citations in general) as an afterthought, the thing you have to do after you thought you were finally done. It becomes about piddling "did I put the periods and commas in the right place?" as though you're being graded... and indeed, probably a lot of people ONLY do those citations because a teacher taught them to.

I won't rehash my whole Sources, Screencaps, and Citations essay here; if you want to know why a good source is so important, check there. But since making it, I've waded ever deeper into the fascinatingly boring land of bibliographies.

At the worst end, you have nothing at all, or bibliographies that give you citations that are wrong, thus wasting your time as you frantically dig around for the real thing you're looking for. (Looking at YOU, Dewar, H. (1822). Report on a Communication from Dr [sic] Dyce of Aberdeen, to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, "Oh Uterine Irritation, and its Effects on the Female Constitution." Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. XI. Edinburgh: William & Charles Tait. Damned thing was cited TWICE in Goettman, Greaves, and Coons, under TWO incorrect titles!) Depending on how vaguely the thing is titled, or how common the author's name is, good luck finding it.

Then you have stuff like Multiple Personality and Dissociation, 1791-1992: A Complete Bibliography by Goettman, Greaves, and Coons, which is MOSTLY correct, does the job of giving you the citations, but that's it. Absolutely nothing about the CONTENT of said citations is discussed, which is fine when it's something like, "Rorschach indicators of multiple personality disorder" but totally not helpful with cases entitled things like "the Case of Mr. X" or... well, "Report on a Communication from Dr Dyce of Aberdeen, to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 'On Uterine Irritation, and its Effects on the Female Constitution.'" Looking at the latter, would YOU think it's an early "double personality" case? No! You'd think it was about endometriosis or something!

But then you have true blessings upon the bibliographic earth. The kind of bibliographies that make you weep with gratitude, that have blurbs on the back cover saying things like, "this bibliography is different ... it is ironically witty, tragic, chucklesome, suspenseful, and likewise thrilling. You may even stay up all night reading it." I am talking, of course, about Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo's Uranian Worlds: A Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, second edition, from 1990.

You might be like, "Rogan, it's a bibliography. Get a hold of yourself, man, how can it be that good?" Well, let me tell you, first of all, it not only gives citations--correct citations, with reprint info no less, so you can FIND the stupid things! No, it also gives:

• a simple, supremely useful key in brackets to describe what kind of queerness is in it: f, F, m, M, and X, with lower case f and m being minor side characters, capital F and M major themes, and X for what we later might call genderbending or trans themes. This allows you to quickly flip through for the stuff you want, if you're just in the mood for lesbians.
• brief, extremely useful blurbs of what the citations are about, ranging from short and simple ("A ghostly male encounter leads to sexual gratification in this short gay male erotic piece") to long and detailed, which include:
  
  • notes on quality ("Recommended" or "can be compared with similar treatments by...")
  • what you could call content warnings ("the author's misogyny is unmistakable" or "Controversial and pornographic")
• brief author bios in caption boxes for notable writers
• three appendices:
  
  • selected queer anthologies
  • selected films and videos (we learned of the existence of Born in Flames and saw it because of this book!)
  • selected fan organizations
• three indexes:
  • the capsule bios
  • indexing all stories by title (for when you remember the title but not who wrote it)
  • indexing all stories by YEAR, so if you're looking specifically for stuff from the 1920s, easy!

Thanks to this bibliography in the sci-fi library, I have discovered SO MUCH cool stuff. We aren't even through the Bs yet, and here's just the stuff we got from this book that we ended up putting on pluralstories:

• Boston, Bruce. "Break."
• Forster, E. M. The Curate's Friend.
• Gomez, Jewelle. "Lynx and Strand." (Not in Uranian Worlds, but we learned of Gomez's existence from it)
• Meluch, R. M. "Conversation with a Legend."
• Pangborn, Edgar. "My Brother Leopold." (Edgar Pangborn is another author we only learned of because of Uranian Worlds and he is a joy)
• Sheldon, Alice (writing as James Tiptree Jr.). "With Delicate Mad Hands."

We discovered Jewelle Gomez, Edgar Pangborn, Lisa Ben/Tigrina, and Alice Sheldon through this book, stories that we have gone TOTALLY GONZO for. And we aren't even through the Bs!

Seriously, guys. This bibliography is a work of art. It has inspired me for when I do the third version of my big multi bibliography, because it leaves me in the dust and has left me... INSPIRED! I yearn to make a bibliography as good as this one! And one day... I WILL!

Comments

[alatefeline]

Now I want to read this bibliography! Thanks, Rogan.

[pantha]

I have not encountered such a bibliography but it sounds fantastic. And yes, I too am someone who reads bibliographies of my own free will (and gets irrationally angry when they are bad or, worse, absent). I guess there's a reason that there's actually a genre of academic history book that is just a bibliography (which is kinda cool, though not fun to discover by mistake, as I did when I thought it was an actual regular academic book).