The Child that Books Built
Page 21
Acknowledgements
Most of the books I used when writing this one are mentioned in the text, but I should also mention Jacqueline Rose’s The Case of Peter Pan; or, The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction (London, 1992); Sven Birkerts’ The Gutenberg Elegies (New York, 1994); The Cool Web: The Pattern of Children’s Reading, edited by Margaret Meek et al (London, 1977); David Pears’s wonderful Wittgenstein in the old Fontana Modern Masters series (London, 1971); Elizabeth Anscombe’s Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. II (Oxford, 1981); and Arthur Applebee’s The Child’s Concept of Story (Chicago, 1978).
In random order but for unrandom acts of help and kindness and intellectual succour, I’d like to thank Edmund de Waal, Judith Maltby, Marina Benjamin, Jenny Uglow, Ian Hunt, David Sexton, Julian Loose and Kate Teltscher, Anne Malcolm, Simon Coates, ‘David in Cambridge’, my parents, my grandmother, and Bridget Spufford (1967–1989). None of them are responsible for what I have chosen to say, and not say, here. In his other role as my editor at Faber, Julian Loose managed never to raise an eyebrow at the delays in the project, or its deviation from the outline we first discussed. In his other role as Literary Editor of the Evening Standard, David Sexton provided me with income, and stimulus, and indulgence through many procrastinations. Katie Campbell (God love her), Deputy Literary Editor of the Standard, understood how freelances feel about being paid. Jenny Turner commissioned an early version of Chapter One for the Independent on Sunday. Max Anderson reminded me of James Bond and suggested I look into the favourite reading of lone gunmen. Sarah Spankie sent me to Antarctica – a journey irrelevant to this book, but too large and permanent a joy not to thank her for it in print. Michael Watts of the Mail on Sunday sent me to De Smet, South Dakota, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society looked after me while I was there; Mr Craig Munger was especially kind.
About the Author
Francis Spufford, a former Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year (1977), has edited two acclaimed literary anthologies and a collection of essays on the history of technology. His first book, I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination, was awarded the Writers Guild Award for Best Non-Fiction Book of 1996 and a Somerset Maugham Award, and also inspired a Frankfurt Ballet production and a clown show at the Edinburgh Festival 2001. His second, The Child that Books Built, was described as’ witty, compelling and elegant' by the New Statesman. His third, Backroom Boys, was called a’ beautifully written book’ by the Daily Telegraph and was shortlisted for the Aventis Prize and longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. Francis Spufford lives in Cambridge.
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ISBN 978–0–571–26643–2