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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3618 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 19, 2025

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Discovered through Project Gutenberg's RSS feed of newly uploaded books: What Is an Index? A Few Notes on Indexes and Indexers, by Henry Wheatley, Secretary of the Index Society and Treasurer of the Early English Text Society

Indexes need not necessarily be dry, and in some cases they form the most interesting portion of a book. The Index to Prynne’s Histrio-mastix (1633), unlike the text, is very readable, and from it may be obtained a sufficient idea of the author’s argument. Prynne deserves especial mention here, as he may be considered as a martyr to his conscientiousness in producing this useful key to the contents of his ponderous volume. No one could read through the book, with its notes overflowing into the margin, so the licenser got confused and passed it in despair. Carlyle refers to the Histrio-mastix as “a book still extant but never more to be read by mortal.” The vituperation however was easily understood when boiled down in an alphabetical form, and Attorney-General Noy found that the author himself had forged the weapons that the prosecutor could use in the attack. This is proved by a passage in Noy’s speech at Prynne’s trial, where he points out that the accused “says Christ was a Puritan in his Index.”

The Indexer has a considerable power in his hand if he chooses to use it, for he can state in a few words what the author may have hidden in verbiage, and he can so arrange his materials as to force the reader to draw an inference. [Whig historian Thomas] Macaulay knew how an author’s own words might be turned against himself, and therefore he wrote to his publishers, “Let no d—— Tory make the Index to my History.” In the Index to the eighth volume of the Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts, 1820, is the following entry:

Watts (Mr.), illiberal remarks of, on Captain Kater’s experiments.

Mr. Watts was displeased at the use of the uncomplimentary adjective and complained to the Editor. In the Notices to Correspondents at the beginning of the tenth volume we read:

The Editor begs to apologize to Mr. Watts for the term ‘illiberal’ used in the index of vol. 8 of this Journal. It escaped his observation till Mr. Watts pointed it out.

Lord Campbell proposed that any author who published a book without an Index should be deprived of the benefits of the Copyright Act, and the Hon. Horace Binney, LL.D., a distinguished American lawyer, held the same views, and would have condemned the culprit to the same punishment. Those, however, who hold the justest theories sometimes fail in practice; thus Lord Campbell had to acknowledge that he had himself sinned before the year 1857; and the deficiencies of the forty Indexes to Allibone’s Dictionary are pointed out in a paper read before the Conference of Librarians in October, 1877. These are the words written by Lord Campbell in the preface to the first volume of his Lives of the Chief Justices (1857)—

I have only further to express my satisfaction in thinking that a heavy weight is now to be removed from my conscience. So essential did I consider an Index to be to every book, that I proposed to bring a Bill into Parliament to deprive an author who publishes a book without an Index of the privilege of copyright; and moreover to subject him for his offence to a pecuniary penalty. Yet from difficulties started by my printers, my own books have hitherto been without an Index. But I am happy to announce that a learned friend at the bar, on whose accuracy I can place entire reliance, has kindly prepared a copious Index which will be appended to this work, and another for the new stereotyped edition of the Lives of the Chancellors.

Books of facts are much easier indexed than books of opinion; but it is most important that the contents of the latter should be properly registered. Some indexers seem to be of opinion that proper names are the most important items in an index, and while carefully including all these, they omit facts and opinions of much greater importance. As a rule it is objectionable when the consulter finds no additional information in the book to what is already given in the index; for instance, should the observation be made respecting a certain state of mind that “the Duke of Wellington probably felt the same at the Battle of Waterloo,” it will be well for the indexer to pass the remark by unnoticed, as should he make the following entries, the consulter is not likely to be in a very genial mood when he looks up the references:

Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington’s supposed feelings at the battle of.

Wellington (Duke of), his supposed feelings at Waterloo.

The Indexer needs knowledge so as to be able to correct his author when necessary, for the most careful author will make slips occasionally, and it is highly satisfactory when the Indexer can set him right. He needs to be specially upon his guard in the case of misprints. Probably the most fruitful source of blundering is the confusion of the letters u and n. These are identical in old MSS., and consequently the copyist sometimes finds it difficult to decide which he shall use. In Capgrave’s Chronicle of England is a reference to the “londe of Iude” [Judæa], but this is mis-spelt Inde in the edition published in the Master of the Rolls’ series in 1858. Here we have a simple misprint which can easily be set right, but the Indexer has enlarged it into a wonderful blunder. Under the letter I is the following curious piece of information:

“India ... conquered by Judas Maccabeus and his brethren, 56.”!!

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