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I checked up just now and found that there is little difference between Foreword and Preface. Like RKN said that when one tires of writing 'donkey' one starts writing 'ass'.
Received wisdom has it that Foreword is written by someone other than the author while Preface is by the author himself (or herself occasionally). But this is like the famous Markownikoff's Rule in organic chemistry...it is more often flouted than followed.
Talking of organic chemistry, I thought I would help my son in this subject which was my favorite half a century ago. But I found to my dismay that it changed as much as an egg turning into a chick. During my time Markownikoff's Rule had no exception, at least in our text books. Anyway, I struggled through methane, ethane, butane; and benzene, but when it came to the Rosenmund Reaction I flung the book aside and gave it up as a lost cause and found a young tutor for him in his IIT JEE.
The moral seems to be once again: 'old dogs and new tricks'
Talking of Forewords, I recalled that I still happen to have my copy of my Shakespeare Uncle's book: "Love's Fulfilment and Other Poems". And fished it out. It is almost half a century old and its covers are somewhat moth-eaten...or rather, eaten by bookworms of the insect kingdom. But the inside pages (all of 200) are impeccably intact.
There is a nostalgic inscription on the first inside page:
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Received wisdom has it that Foreword is written by someone other than the author while Preface is by the author himself (or herself occasionally). But this is like the famous Markownikoff's Rule in organic chemistry...it is more often flouted than followed.
Talking of organic chemistry, I thought I would help my son in this subject which was my favorite half a century ago. But I found to my dismay that it changed as much as an egg turning into a chick. During my time Markownikoff's Rule had no exception, at least in our text books. Anyway, I struggled through methane, ethane, butane; and benzene, but when it came to the Rosenmund Reaction I flung the book aside and gave it up as a lost cause and found a young tutor for him in his IIT JEE.
The moral seems to be once again: 'old dogs and new tricks'
Talking of Forewords, I recalled that I still happen to have my copy of my Shakespeare Uncle's book: "Love's Fulfilment and Other Poems". And fished it out. It is almost half a century old and its covers are somewhat moth-eaten...or rather, eaten by bookworms of the insect kingdom. But the inside pages (all of 200) are impeccably intact.
There is a nostalgic inscription on the first inside page:
To
Chy. G. Prabhakara Sastry, M. Sc.,
with prayerful blessings
...G. V. Subbaramaiah
25-6-'66
Nostalgic because I stayed in his house for my Pre-University year and he taught us English Prose in 1957-58 at a moffusil place called Nidubrole...he was the Principal of its P. B. N. College. The book got written and published 8 years later. It is priced Rs 2 (two only).
There is a full-page frontispiece...a sepia-tinted photo of Late Sri Rebala Pattabhirama Reddy. The page opposite has the author's homage in verse to the Reddy Garu. The subtitle under the photo is: PATRON (kriti bharta)...to whom the book is dedicated.
The next page has another poetic homage to the Patron when he was alive, written earlier on by the author (kriti karta).
The next page is titled: FORE-WORD. It is written by the Vice-Chancellor of the University to which our college was then affiliated.
The next two pages bear the title: PREFACE. It is written, not by the author, but by the renowned Professor and Head of the Department of English at the University at Vizagh where I spent 7 years trying to learn some physics, in vain.
The next page is titled: COMMENDATION written by the Head of the Law Department & Principal of the above university.
The next page is a full-blown sepia photo of the author (kriti karta).
The page facing it is titled: THANKS-GIVING. The thanks are for all those eminences mentioned above who took their time to write. And for the surviving wife of the 'kriti bharta'..."for approving my dedication of this work to her husband of immortal memory, and offering to bear the expenses of its publication".
Then comes the meat: about 200 poems on Divine Love.
Then come 4 pages titled: Some Opinions on "Songs & Sonnets" (an earlier work by the author).
Finally there is a whole page titled: ERRATA.
I have something to say about ERRATA which used to be a common feature of all books published those days when the composition was done painfully and manually on the good old printing machines...foot-pedaled and hand-inked.
I always felt that ERRATA must be the first page instead of the last page...
There are about 25 items in the ERRATA of this book. In addition, I find that my good uncle had laboriously hand-corrected those errors that escaped his proof-reading.
While, as I said earlier, an expensive 1960s Mc Graw Hill (US) book by T. P. Das got its TITLE printed as:
Relativistic Theory of Elections
instead of "Electrons" !
There is one errata item in my uncle's book that delighted me:
Page 41...Line 11...For 'hope'...Read 'ope'
Obviously the compositor (a chap with a likely sweaty inky torn banian) had never heard of 'ope' and was sure that my Shakespeare Uncle made a mistake and corrected it helpfully as 'hope'.
I don't blame him...neither did I know what 'ope' meant till now...
I read the Foreword, Preface, Errata etc.
Don't ask me if I ever read all those Love Poems. Sorry...poetry leaves me cold.
The only book of verse I read and reread is Edward Lear's 'Book of Bosh'. It has many limericks, as you know, and quite as many abol-tabol.
The 'poem' I love there is his "Courtship of Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo". Because it is set on my "Coast of Coromandel where early pumpkins blow". Also I am sure I myself was that Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo in my last but sixth birth.
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All my 5 Ishani booklets have 'invited' Forewords.
But no Prefaces...I did write occasionally some stuff like my uncle's Thanks-Giving.
A few do have Commendations of the earlier booklets.
None of them has a 'kriti bharta' who footed the bill for publication expenses...sigh!
My Literary Uncle, Sri Bhattaram Radhakrishnaiah (80+), had read all these booklets.
And said that the Forewords read better than the 'stories'...an unkind cut to the 'kriti karta'.
To him it seems the Forewords are the main course and the rest are Fillers...
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