Sunday, September 14, 2008

Getting back on the horse

Now I understand how Captain Scott felt when he got to the South Pole only to find that Amundsen had been there already and was on his way home. The book I’ve been researching and writing for the past four years just came out. But it doesn't have my name on it.
It’s the writer’s nightmare – that someone else is working on exactly the same subject as you and that their book will come out a few months before yours. (I published my first article touching on this subject in April 1999.) You watch the archives and borrowings of relevant books from the libraries to see if anyone else is taking out the same ones, and it seemed that nobody was: that’s because they’d already had them years before.
It’s by Carol Burnell and it’s called Divided Affections: The Extraordinary Life of Maria Cosway, Celebrity Artist and it’s published by Column House, Lausanne. She has been working on it for, not four, but twelve, years, and it shows. I almost wished I could say it was badly written and sloppily researched, but it’s scrupulously researched, lovingly written and beautifully illustrated. I haven’t finished reading it yet but it’s clearly a tour de force and will be the definitive work on Cosway herself, and leading figures in late 18th century European art and politics - and of course Cosway and Jefferson.
Ah well – you know what they say when you’re thrown by a horse.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Learn to drive? ;)
Seriously, there is no law that says only one book on a subject can be published at a time.

Tuscan Traveller said...

True Ed, apparently Byron gets "done" every 2 1/2 years. But I consulted my most trusted advisor, who has read both, and she agrees that this is too much like the book I was hoping to write. But mine needed at least another two or more years and the heart has gone out of it now.
Maybe there should be a central data base saying who's doing whom.
But who would tell?
Thanks for the comment - but don't worry - there are other horses.

Anonymous said...

Two and a half years is a lng time in the publishing market, as well- it's not likely that your competitor's book will be as big a seller by then;) Plus, yours would be better for teh benefit of both you doing doing writing AND having two and a half more years to research than you did before.
You never know!

Tuscan Traveller said...

Good point - I'm not throwing any research notes away yet.