Dennis Duncan, Writer and translator, Adam Smyth, Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book, Balliol College, Oxford University

Dennis Duncan is a writer and translator based in London. He is currently writing a history of the book index, from the medieval period to the age of the Kindle, to be published by Penguin in 2020, and is author of The Oulipo and Modern Thought (Oxford University Press, 2019). His recent articles have considered Mallarme and jugs, James Joyce and pornography, and the history of the Times New Roman typeface. Dr Duncan writes on bibliography and French literature for the Times Literary Supplement, and has published translations of Michel Foucault, Boris Vian, and Alfred Jarry.


Adam Smyth is Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, Oxford. His most recent books include Material Texts in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2018); Autobiography in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2010); A History of English Autobiography (edited, Cambridge University Press, 2016); and Book Destruction from the Medieval to the Contemporary (edited with Gill Partington, Palgrave, 2014). He is the co-editor of Routledge's book series Material Readings in Early Modern Culture. He also enjoys discussing his work beyond the academy: he writes regularly for the London Review of Books, and has appeared on TV and radio in the UK and abroad. Adam Smyth is the co-host of the literary discussion podcast and radio show, Litbits.

Tamara Atkin, Queen Mary University of London
Sidney Berger, Director Emeritus, Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum
Claire M. L. Bourne, The Pennsylvania State University
Meaghan J. Brown, Folger Shakespeare Library
Rachel Sagner Buurma, Swarthmore College
Luisa Cale, Birkbeck, University of London
Nicholas Dames, Columbia University
Jenny Davidson, Columbia University
Dennis Duncan, Writer and translator
Alexandra Franklin, University of Oxford
Joseph Howley, Columbia University
Gill Partington, Warwick University
Sean Roberts, Virginia Commonwealth University
Shef Rogers, University of Otago
Daniel Sawyer, University of Oxford
Helen Smith, University of York
Adam Smyth, University of Oxford
Tiffany Stern, Royal Holloway, University of London
Whitney Trettien, University of Pennsylvania
Abigail Williams, University of Oxford
Hazel Wilkinson, University of Birmingham

"an engaging work of "book history as anatomy" ... each of the contributors to Book Parts finds their own metaphorical vocabulary to describe the relationship between book part and main text." -- James Waddell, Times Literary Supplement

"...a Gray's Anatomy for the bookish" -- Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"For making us think about the elements of which a book is comprised, and making us reflect on their long histories - and for doing so with intelligence, learning and wit - this book is to be greatly welcomed...It is rarely less than fascinating and sometimes hugely entertaining." -- Mathew Lyons, The Author

"Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals." -- M. C. Cohen, CHOICE

"Duncan and Smyth contextualize their undertaking with an unusually self-conscious introduction that does not spend time giving us synopses of each chapter ... There is little need to speak of the whole collection when it is this well edited and each part feels in concert with the others ... It is the drama of this shadowy realm that Smyth and Duncan's collection, both in whole and in part, demonstrates for us." -- Nicholas D. Nace, The Book Collector