Böcker av Dirk Van Hulle

An illumination of writing's mysteries through examining the words and ideas that were edited out of renowned novels, poems, and plays. Imagine looking over your favorite author's shoulder and witnessing the moment they begin writing the opening chapter of their best-loved novel. What you might see is that the author has to write, cut, and rewrite their words--often many times--in order to find the right form. Unearthing what has been jettisoned, moved, or edited can give us valuable insights into the creative process. Editorial decisions are documented in an extraordinary number of literary manuscripts, notebooks, and letters preserved in libraries and archives. What would Frankenstein have looked like if Mary and Percy Shelley had not collaborated on the draft? Would we view The Wind in the Willows differently if its title had remained The Mole & the Water Rat? This highly illustrated book invites you to explore these roads not taken and discover ideas that did not make it into renowned novels, poems, and plays. With insights into the drafting techniques of writers as varied as Jane Austen, Christina Rossetti, Raymond Chandler, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, John le Carré, Barbara Pym, Philip Pullman, and Alice Oswald, this is a fascinating unveiling of the mysteries of writing, cutting, rewriting, and publishing creative works.

In this book, the author examines the interaction between the private composition process and the public life of Joyce's 'Work in Progress', from the creation of the separate sections through their publication in periodicals and as separately published sections.

By taking the principles of manuscript genetics and using them to engage in a comparative study of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, Dirk Van Hulle has produced a provocative work that re-imagines the links between the two authors. His elegant readings reveal that the most striking similarities between these two lie not in their nationality or style but in their shared fascination with the process of revision.Van Hulle's thoughtful application of genetic theory--the study of a work from manuscript to final form in its various iterations--marks a new phase in this dynamic field of inquiry. As one of only a handful of books in English dealing with this emerging area of study, Manuscript Genetics, Joyce's Know-How, Beckett's Nohow will be indispensable not only to Joyce and Beckett scholars but also to anyone interested in genetic criticism.