Authors and their public in ancient times

by George Haven Putnam

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

In printing the second and third impressions of my essay, I have been able to take advantage of certain corrections and suggestions submitted by friendly critics, among whom I wish to make special acknowledgments to Mr. Charlton T. Lewis and to Mr. Otis S. Hill, whose aid in the verification of the quotations has been particularly valuable. I may mention that in the printing of the first edition, I had been obliged, in connection with the increasing limitations of my eyesight, to confide the verification and the proof-reading of the quotations to an assistant, whose services proved, unfortunately, incompetent and untrustworthy. As a result, a number of errors which had been repeated from the German editions, or which had crept into the work of the transcriber, of the typewriter, or of the compositor, found place with annoying persistency, in the volume as printed. While I may not hope that the text as now printed is correct (and a book free from typographical errors is an almost impossible production), I can feel assured that the more serious misprints at least have been duly cared for.

Attention has also been given to the correction of certain errors of statement or of interpretation, but in some of the instances in which my critics have not been in accord with the authorities upon which my own statements have been based, I have ventured to abide by the conclusions of the latter. My little essay made, of course, no pretensions to establish any conclusions or to maintain any individual theories on questions of classical literature concerning which there might be differences among the scholars. My purpose was simply to trace, as far as might be practicable, from the scattered references in the literature of the period, an outline record of the continuity of literary activity, the methods of the production and distribution of literature, and the nature of the relations between the authors and their readers. For the citations utilised for this study, I was, as stated in my bibliography, chiefly indebted to such scholars as Wilhelm Schmitz, Joh. Müller, Paul Clement, Theodor Birt, Louis Haenny, H. Géraud, and A. Meineke. The citations given from the Greek or Latin authors were in the main based upon or corrected by the versions of these German or French writers, and were specifically so credited.

The majority of my reviewers were ready to understand the actual purpose of my book and to recognise that my part in the undertaking was limited to certain general inferences or conclusions as to literary methods or conditions. In one or two cases, however, the critics, ignoring the specified purpose and the necessary limitations of the essay, saw fit to treat it as a treatise on classical literature and devoted their reviews almost exclusively to textual criticisms and corrections. In these, of course (irrespective of certain obvious errors above referred to), they found ample opportunity for differences of opinion with the authorities whose versions I had utilised, and ignoring the fact that my renderings were specifically credited to the German or French editions, they criticised or corrected these as if they had been presented by myself. It seems to me worth while, therefore, again to point out that with these issues between the scholarly or critical authorities I am not at all concerned, and that in their controversies I assumed to take no part. My sketches of literary methods, and the suggestions submitted by me as to the relations of authors and their readers, are affected very little by these scholastic controversies, and whatever interest or value they may possess will be entirely independent, for instance, of such a question as the correctness of the account given by Aulus Gellius (cited by me from Schmitz and Blass) of the correspondence between Aristotle and Alexander.

A similar word may be given in regard to the forms utilised for certain terms or names which have become familiarised with our English speech. My most captious critic stated, for instance, very flatly that my spelling of “Piræus” was “neither Latin, Greek, nor English.” I can only explain that the name is so spelled in the latest edition of Lippincott’s Gazetteer, and for such casual references as I had occasion to make, I had considered this work a sufficiently trustworthy authority for the spelling of a name which has found place in English narrative.

The same critic saw fit to assume that, because I had used a German editor’s paraphrase in Latin of some saying of Suidas, I had imagined that this author had written in Latin; oblivious of the fact that, a few pages farther on, I had made specific references to the various writings of Suidas in Greek.

I refer to these details not because they are in themselves of any continued importance, but simply as examples of what struck me as disproportioned textual or verbal criticism of a volume which made no claims to textual authority. The text ought of course to have been correct, and it was certainly the case that some inexcusable errors had crept into it. Regrettable as these errors were, however, they did not as a fact affect the main theme of the essay or sketch. It is assuredly in order for a reviewer to call attention to any such oversights, but the reviewer who devotes the substance of the space at his command to a list of typographical errors or oversights, and who has hardly a word to say concerning the purpose of a book, or the extent to which such purpose has been carried out, loses sight, I think, of the real function of reviewing. He may make a good show of infallibility, or of authoritative knowledge, for himself or for his journal, but he certainly fails to give what the reader is entitled to expect, a just and well proportioned impression of the work under consideration.

Since the publication of the first edition, the larger work, as an introduction to which this essay was planned, Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages, has been brought before the public, and has been received with a very satisfactory measure of appreciation. The readers of this last have occasionally raised question concerning a lack of harmony of design or of uniformity of method between the two books. It is in order therefore again to explain that they were never intended to serve as two sections of a continuous narrative. The record of the making and distribution of books during the centuries after 476, I have attempted to present with a certain degree of comprehensiveness; but for classic times, there are no materials available for any complete or comprehensive record. The sketch presented by me is, as stated, based upon a few references to literary methods which are scattered through the writings of classic authors. A much more comprehensive study of the conditions of literary production among the ancients could very easily, however, be prepared by a student who possessed the requisite familiarity with the literature of the time, and who was sufficiently free from limitations as to eyesight to be able to trace and to verify his quotations for himself, and I trust that some competent scholar may yet interest himself in producing such a treatise.

New York, June 15, 1896.