A Literary Legacy—Lost
August 30, 2009

On Monday, August 24, the literary blogging community lost one of its brightest stars. The Abbeville Manual of Style closed its doors or perhaps I should say its brilliant front door. And that’s what the blog truly was—a graceful, welcoming archway into the fine art world of Abbeville Press. The original post has since been edited to say it is now on hiatus, but I suspect that is due to the widespread shock and mourning that the original message engendered.

Literary blogs come and go, most of them with little attention because many of them are not worth much attention. But this blog was different. Even in the beginning it had—there is no other word for it—style:

If only the world were more like an Abbeville Press book. Beautifully conceived and executed, tasteful and elegant, comprehensive and clear…instead we have this vague, awkward, confusing, poorly punctuated place that would take a few million years of editing to set straight, not to mention a major design overhaul.

Naturally, this kind of sloppiness bothers Abbeville. To quote our mission statement: “The company believes that publishing illustrated books is a distinct specialty, requiring exacting standards of editorial, design, and production savoir-faire. Abbeville is dedicated to extending this standard of excellence throughout its diverse list, its relationships with booksellers, and its partnerships in distributing.” But what about extending this credo to life? Don’t personal relationships demand excellence? Doesn’t good taste in art or music require exacting standards? Don’t cocktail parties require savoir-faire?    

Of course they didn’t call it a blog. Such a word does not belong among the tasteful and elegant. Instead, toward the end of that introductory post they noted two points:

1.1. The Manual of Style is a “manual,” not a “blog.” The word “manual” conveys authority, practicality, and concision. The word “blog” sounds like a dump truck landing in a swamp.
1.2. The contributors to the Manual are not “bloggers,” nor are they “editors.” They are “Arbiters of Style.”

So, out of respect to the arbiters, allow me to rephrase. The “blog” better known as the Abbeville Manual of Style, most definitely not of the dump-trunk variety, has closed its front door. What are their plans for it? They say they are in hiatus, but what, exactly, do they mean by that? If they are not back soon, will the blog Manual of Style begin sporting one of those black security screen doors that serve as much as a fashion deterrent as a safety one?  

I hope not. In this world of flash and speed and links and slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am posts, the Abbeville Manual of Style stood alone, an Audrey Hepburn surrounded by crowds of disposable semi-naked Paris Hiltons. But even among respectable and literate blogs—and there are many worth reading—the Manual was the ideal.

One of the most popular series was their affectionate boxing rounds with the Chicago Manual of Style, the style guide used by almost everyone except journalists. Abbeville vs. Chicago was a more or less monthly match where only one  of the parties showed up to crack its knuckles and wax poetic about the other’s private and public parts. In the third round, which took place on June 27, 2008, the Manual went head-to-head about the manuscript editor’s responsibilities, essentially calling Chicago a sissy:

1.2. Stages of editing. Chicago claims that “Editors usually go through a manuscript three times.” Three times? That’s all they can handle? That’s what they call “responsibility”? Maybe chumps take three glances at a manuscript and call it a day; editors go through a manuscript nine times and throw in a tenth because they love the smell of the ink, the serifs of the font, and the blind rush of power that comes from sending superfluous commas to their doom.

Their sole participation didn’t stop the Manual from going at it, however, and to its credit CMOS, when they finally heard about the match, took it in stride even while declining to participate. That’s good because those matches were the stuff of dreams for energetic editors and impassioned grammarians. 

Grammar matches aside, the Manual, during its nearly two-year run, turned its thoughts in many directions—their own books and authors, e-book pricing, literary dating websites, design, favorite books lists, media, polls, events, publishing, cocktails, art exhibitions, book drives, bookstores, and much more. Yet it all felt cohesive in the same way a home, if decorated with love, can have many different rooms yet provide a sense of consonance.

In a January, 2009 discussion about the changing world of publishing, the Manual noted: “As for literature itself, it won’t become obsolete until humans do. Even in today’s screen-dominated world, almost everything important that we say to each other, whether in the classroom, in the political arena, at weddings or funerals, or in our ordinary figures of speech, originated in a book somewhere. As Wallace Stevens wrote, we are all ‘made out of words.’ It’s time for readers, writers, and publishers to reclaim that legacy, and to take pride in it.”

I agree. Alas, the resplendent and noble Manual can have no replacement. The world of literary blogging needs its Audrey Hepburn. Come back, Manual of Style, and reclaim your legacy. We are lost without you.

Upcoming Book Festivals:
We are heading into September, the busiest month for book festivals in the U.S. This coming weekend features three of them.

Mt. Timpanogos Park in Provo Canyon, Utah will be hosting the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival from September 3-5. This festival, which features two full days of storytelling with more than a dozen performers, workshops for future storytellers, a sing-along, and more. Though most performances are geared to older youth, teens, and adults, there is a special Friday night “Bedtime Stories” for younger ones. Tickets are $40 for individuals and $100 for families with up to six members. 

More than 150 authors including Sir Harold Evans and Lee Child will make it to Georgia between September 4-6 for the Decatur Book Festival. The festival kicks off with a writer’s conference on Friday and the keynote address by Evans on “The Vital Future of the Printed Word.” Activities include a Book Market Street Fair, more than 300 authors, two parades, a children’s stage, a teen poetry slam and a dedicated venue called The Escape, almost one dozen adult stages, give Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, panels on newspapers in the digital age, a slew of mystery and thriller authors, a pickled okra contest, a mariachi brunch, a dance about verbs and adverbs, an international cuisine picnic, an author wrestling with one of the city’s most notorious wresters, a song tribute to a special author, and several “tracks”s: Poetry, Religion, Business & Personal Economy, Health & Wellness, LGBT, and Atlanta Authors. Make this one if you can!   

And on September 5-6, North Carolina will host the Charlotte Literary Festival, which focuses on youth and adult literature and literacy. Among their scheduled events are author panels and presentations, book signings, a Health Fair, exhibitors, live music, an Authors Lane, cartoon characters for the kids, festival food vendors, dance exhibitions, storytelling, stage performances, and the opportunity to win one of 300 prizes to be given away.

The Pub House:
Travelman is a UK publisher, but not of books. Instead they have a unique niche—works of classic and modern fiction and nonfiction printed on a single sheet of paper  and folded like a map. Elegant pen illustrations accompany the text. Despite its format, it is designed to be opened and read like a book.

The idea for the series was based on a conversation Alexander Waugh had with William Trevor and it also hawks back to the nineteenth-century two-penny short stories Rudyard Kipling sold on the Indian railways. Just enough reading for your train ride.

The stories are published in numbered series and colored-coded into categories: Adventure, Classics, Comedy, Crime, First Edition, Romance, Science Fiction, Sex, and Suspense. The cost is only £1.99 from the publisher (and if you buy two you get another free), though they can also be bought through online book dealers if you are in the U.S. Exclusively from Travelman is an attractive boxed set priced at £29 that contains twenty-four of the booklets.

Of Interest:
It’s an old article, but it’s still a damn good one: “10 Ways to Save Money on Books” by J.D. Roth. Most of the suggestions won’t come as a surprise—use your library more, especially for hot new titles, download classics via Project Gutenberg, hit used bookstores, utilize online book exchange sites, and share. For me, the most intriguing suggestion was “Buy only what you intend to read.”  But probably the most interesting part of the article are the comments. Some commentators add suggestions of their own, others ask questions, and a few that castigate the ideas because they hurt independent bookstores, publishers, and authors (“You can all save all the money you want when there are no more books published and the US sinks even further into illiteracy and ignorance.”).

This Week . . .
I encourage you to take some time and visit the online exhibition Unseen Hands: Women Printers, Binders, and Book Designers courtesy of Princeton University Library. Their introduction notes that women have been involved in the printing and making of books since books were invented:

Even before the advent of movable type, there was a strong tradition of women producing manuscripts in western European religious houses. In the Convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli in Florence, we find the first documented evidence, in 1476, of women working as printers. Girls and women were often trained by their fathers or husbands to assist in printing businesses, and there are many instances from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries of women taking over and managing these enterprises upon the early demise of their male relatives.

Women may have had unsung parts in earlier times, but by the nineteenth century European and American women were actually barred by male-only unions. That didn’t stop all of them from pursing this work, and this exhibition celebrates women like Emily Faithfull, Agnes Peterson, Augusta Lewis Troup. Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Yeats. Of course women now work in all aspects of the publishing and printing businesses, but many of those who came before worked unheralded and unknown to us today. Here is your opportunity to get to know a few of them through their stunning work.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren