First Editions Second Thoughts

Innovative online talk from Christies which brought together five authors who they had asked to annotate first editions of one of their books to be auctioned in aid of English PEN, the international association of writers.

This was a wonderful selection of speakers and I was pleased that I had read three of the books being discussed and am now intrigued to read a fourth. Each author has taken a different approach to the project.

David Nichols had annotated “One Day” which I love and said he has partly apologises for bad jokes he had made about people in it, explained where some ideas came from and self-edited.

Tracey Chevalier took “Girl with the Pearl Earring”, another favourite, and talked about how there was a spelling mistake on the back of the original dust sheet which has made it a collectors item. She said she had not reread it since it came out so found it an interesting experience. She had pasted 25 paintings in the book which she had annotated.

Sarah Water looked at “Tipping the Velvet”, guess what another favourite, and again said this was the first time she had reread it. She’d originally written it for herself as she was unsure if there would be a market for it. She had marked things which she now knew were wrong and references to earlier Lesbian literature.

The two I hadn’t read were Anne Enright who talked about “The Green Road” which has gone onto the to be read list. She has added notes on the inception of the book and how she has used received verse in it. Jung Chang talked about “Wild Swans” and how she had used the annotations to bring the story up to date. It tells of the lives of her grandmother, her mother and herself in China.