General Introduction to Sections A and B

Scope of entries and presentation method

Key terms used in Sections A and B are defined below.

Each major entry represents the first separate appearance of its contents. Major entries are ordered chronologically based on the publication date of the first published version. Revised versions are reported with the original major entry. Where major entry titles are later combined (e.g., in Rabbit Angstrom or The Complete Henry Bech), the later book is given a separate major entry.

Subsidiary entries are generally ordered chronologically by edition and within each edition. For both trade and small press publications, abbreviated entries are given for preliminary materials available to us. For trade publications, detailed subsidiary entries are given for the first American and British trade printings, for later printings with significant revisions, for any limited printing, and for Franklin and Easton printings, with shorter subsidiary entries for first paperback reprints that do not include significant revisions. Special copies of trade books prepared only for the author or publisher or other participants, with none intended for sale, are ignored. Major entries are included for original book club editions and subentries for the issues created by Knopf for the Kroch's & Brentano's First Edition Circle. In part as a caution, because they are seldom overtly identified as such, we include notes within trade book subentries for other American book club printings we have examined. For small press publications, a detailed subentry is given for each published issue, proceeding from the least to the most limited, without regard to when copies were first distributed unless a significant interval elapsed in their issuance. In assigning sequential designations among editions and printings, we have sometimes assumed an absence of intermediate versions.

Upper case letters are assigned to preliminary materials, lower case letters to published issues. If the existence of variants within an issue appears intentional (e.g., the use of different wrappers because of a supply shortfall) or where copies within an issue are differentiated by manual designation (e.g., hand-numbered from hand-lettered, signed from unsigned), each variant is assigned an Arabic number; we also use Arabic numbers to distinguish proofs with differing cover information. Lower case Roman numerals are assigned to publishers' in-house materials, to overrun copies of limited printings (whether or not marked "out-of-series"), occasionally to "mistake" copies, and to noteworthy incidental items.

Because presentation, hors commerce, overrun, and mistake copies are not offered generally for sale, they are treated as "Not for sale" unless we have verified that the publisher's regular practice was to prepare such copies for sale to selected customers.

In the traditional view, galleys, proofs, and other advance materials not sold to the public merit little or no recognition from the bibliographer. We are persuaded otherwise: (1) With trade book advance issues now often distributed in significant quantities, to disregard them honors formality over substance. (2) Particularly for trade books, preliminary materials are often a source of publication information, albeit tentative, not otherwise available. (3) Preliminary materials sometimes reflect an earlier state of text, which may provide information useful to researchers. (4) As these materials have become more widely collected, the information will also be of use to dealers and collectors. For trade publications, information is only provided for materials that would have been distributed to third parties. We provide more extensive information on small press proofs, which are far scarcer and rarely documented. Our listings are incomplete in both categories.

Updike regularly revisits his texts before their republication, most often making unacknowledged changes that affect only a single line. A thorough inventory of these revisions is beyond the scope of this book.

Regrettably, the records of many publishers, including those of Alfred A. Knopf, Updike's American trade publisher since 1959, were not available to us. Information derived from other sources includes publication order within a year, in a few instances the publication year, and some publication prices. Advance issues and publicity materials were often our only sources for print quantity and publication dates; these predictions are not always borne out.

We examined books non-destructively. Some points of physical description based on our observations may prove incorrect.

Description conventions

Subtitles that only indicate genre (e.g., "Short Stories") are omitted from main entry captions.

The year of publication appears in brackets in the major entry caption if it is not stated on the title page or, if the item lacks a title page, in its colophon. In a detailed subentry, the publisher's name is given as it appears on the title page. If the publisher's name or the place of publication is not stated there, we supply it in brackets in the title page description; if the item lacks a title page, we supply that information in brackets at the end of the subentry's first paragraph of text.

Text transcriptions, provided primarily for the title pages and the fronts and spines of covers and jackets of books, indicate type case and style (roman, italic, or script and solid, outlined, or with shadows), with vertical lines indicating line breaks. Some copyright page information is also shown in the type case and style in which it appears in text, but in a consistent order, with periods supplied if needed for clarity. In quoting colophon text, we mark paragraph breaks only where additional leading between lines conveys that intention; we occasionally mark line breaks for clarity in the absence of printed punctuation at line ends. For the reader's convenience, we extract copyright information from the colophon if the publisher placed it there.

From copyright pages we provide copyright dates and owners of principal contributions; publisher's name, publication year, statement of edition or printing, and, in Section A, comments (presumably Updike's own) if they comment on-rather than merely identify-prior appearances.

We provide only summary information concerning reprint paperback covers and the backs and flaps of jackets and wrappers.

Unless otherwise indicated,
o text is printed horizontally; vertical text reads from top to bottom; and broadside text is printed in a single centered column;
o text, rules, and designs are in black; rules are single and plain; frames are rectangular;
o typefaces are roman and solid;
o text, rules, and designs on cloth or leather covers are stamped;
o a book's title page appears on the recto and copyright information on the verso of the same leaf;
o in colophon copy designations, numbers are Arabic and Roman numerals are capital; letters are always specified as capital or small;
o paper used for a book's text block or endpapers or for pamphlets is uncoated and white, off-white, or cream; paper used for broadsides, cards, and envelopes is uncoated and white;
o endpapers have neither text nor decoration;
o paper edges are trimmed smooth and are not stained or gilded;
o books in boards are cased and their spines rounded rather than flat;
o trade book jackets and the wrappers of trade publishers' paperbacks are white coated paper; paper jackets and wrappers for other books and for pamphlets are uncoated;
o glassine, tissue, or acetate jackets have neither text nor decoration;
o labels are paper and rectangular;
o a folded sheet is creased vertically rather than horizontally;
o author photographs are in black & white; line drawings are in black; other photographs, drawings, and illustrations are in color;
o illustrations of any kind are reproductions;
o items are manufactured in the publisher's stated home country; and
o book club hardcover books are those published by Book-of-the-Month Club; book club softcover books are those published by Quality Paperback Book Club; and book club books lack printed publication prices, ISBNs, and bar codes.

In the absence of a widely available standard reference, trying to assign color names that are both precise and commonly recognizable is sometimes a frustrating task. While we often use "light," "medium," and "dark" or hyphenates as qualifiers, the less generic names we occasionally use (sometimes following extended debate with family members) will seem subjective, incorrect, or unfamiliar to some readers. The reader should also keep in mind that paper and ink colors vary and are subject to fading.

A type style, text orientation, color designation for text, or color designation for rules or decorations continues until another is specified.

Where dimensions are stated, width precedes height; thickness is not given unless a bibliographical point is involved. We generally give dimensions for galleys and page proofs, but omit dimensions for bound preliminary issues if they approximate those of the published book's text block.

We refer to the side of a slipcase that faces the reader when the spine is at the right as the slipcase front, even if the design suggests otherwise.

We generally omit
o details of publishers' devices and marks;
o information on signature gatherings and page-by-page descriptions of contents;
o ISBN and other cataloging data;5
o type face names and design, materials, and production information except as reported in the colophon, unless otherwise available to us;6 and
o mention of book or jacket surfaces that are blank or lack pertinent information.

We do note the presence of jackets that lack text and decoration, with these cautions: (1) We may be unaware of some instances in which books were issued in such jackets. (2) Some copies acquire protective covers in passing among dealers and collectors and with that a spurious history of having been issued thus. For one example, dealers regularly offer Lord John Press books in "the original glassine." None of the books we purchased directly from Lord John Press came in a glassine jacket.

Where we have been unable to examine an item, its entry is preceded by a single asterisk. Where its publication price is not printed on the item and was obtained otherwise than from the publisher or its promotional materials, the price is followed by a double asterisk. Where the publication price is not available to us, a triple asterisk appears in the place of the publication price.

For Updike's prose and poetry collections in Section A, we list the contents with the least limited printing. In those lists,
o material by Updike that had not been previously published is in bold;
o the quotation marks conventionally used with poem and short prose titles are omitted;
o section headings and titles are shown as they appear in the table of contents, except as follows: (i) headings and titles that as a matter of design are consistently presented in all capitals or italics are changed to conventional title capitalization and roman; (ii) braces are put around headings, titles, or portions of titles that appear in the main text but not in the table of contents; (iii) subtitles in the main text are disregarded; (iv) introductory comments that precede a piece in the main text but do not appear in its table of contents entry are generally disregarded, but braces are put around comments needed to better identify entries;
o to indicate the author's grouping of pieces into subdivisions within a collection, the title of a major division is shown in large and small capitals within square brackets, while the title of a minor division is shown in italics followed immediately, within square brackets, by the number of items in the section or group, also in italics;
o if the book has no table of contents, the entire list is within braces and any section headings in the main text are within square brackets;
o semi-colons separate titles in a list where commas are present within titles, otherwise commas separate titles; and
o acknowledgments are disregarded unless listed in table of contents or so captioned in the main text; dedications and other credit lists are disregarded.

Other, infrequently-used devices are noted where they apply.

For anthologies in Section B, copyright information for contributions by authors other than Updike is omitted, and the contents are not listed.