Flaubert et une gouvernante anglaise: à la recherhe de Juliet Herbert (Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2011; Preface)


Notes on this edition: Flaubert et une gouvernante anglaise: à la recherhe de Juliet Herbert. Hermia Oliver. Mont-Saint-Aignan: Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2011. Pp. 264. Translated by Gillian Pink.

Preface by Julian Barnes; printed in French (pp. 7-12) and English (pp. 12-16). The French translation of Barnes’s preface by Catriona Seth.

The book Flaubert and an English Governess was originally published in English in 1980 by Oxford University Press.

Amours de voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough (Persephone Books, 2009; Preface)


Notes on this edition: Amours de voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough. Preface by Julian Barnes. London: Persephone Books, 2009. Pp. xxxii, 91. 20 cm. ISBN: 9781903155721. £10.00.

Julian Barnes’s preface runs from v to xvii. It was later reprinted in Through the Window: Seventeen Essays (and one short story) as “The ‘Unpoetical’ Clough”.

Copyright page states “Persephone Book Nº 82”.

Metroland | Archive Edition (Vintage, 2016)


Notes on this edition: Julian Barnes. Metroland. London: Vintage, 2016. Pp. 203 [225] + [7]. 21.6 x 13.5 cm. ISBN: 9781784705916. £9.99.

Special Archive Edition with a new introduction by Julian Barnes. The archive material features letters and reviews pertaining to the novel Metroland:

  • Letter from Sheila McIlwraith at AD Peters Writers’ Agents submitting manuscript to Tom Maschler at Jonathan Cape.
  • First report on the manuscript (initials XH)
  • Second report on the manuscript (initials CC)
  • Letter from Julian Barnes outlining his edits to Liz Calder his editor
  • Deleted scene from the first draft of the manuscript
  • Letter from Julian Barnes to Tony Colwell, the art director responsible for the book jacket
  • Letter from Philip Larkin to Julian Barnes
  • Letter from Dodie Smith to Julian Barnes
  • Reviews

The book’s graphic design is based on London Underground seat fabrics. For more on the design on the Vintage Blog: http://vintagebooksdesign.tumblr.com/post/151283886571/metroland-julianbarnes

The Truth about Dogs by Volker Kriegel (Bloomsbury, 2005)


Notes on this edition: Volker Kriegel. The Truth about Dogs. London: Bloomsbury, 2005. Pp. 121 + [7]. 17.7 x 11. cm. ISBN: 0747578524. £5.99.

First published by Bloomsbury in hardback, this edition features a newly designed paper cover in blue-green. Originally published as Kriegels Kleine Hunde-Kunde by Volker Kriegel. Translated and with an introduction by Julian Barnes. 

Thirty-Seventh Antiquarian Book Fair 1996


Notes on this edition: Julian Barnes. “Introduction.” Thirty-Seventh Antiquarian Book Fair, 1996. London: Antiquarian Booksellers Association, 1996. Pp. 128. 23.5 x 16.9 cm.

In 1996, the Grosvenor House in London hosted the Antiquarian Booksellers Association’s Thirty-Seventh Antiquarian Book Fair, and Julian Barnes wrote the introduction to the fair catalog (pp. 5-7). His essay discusses book collecting and the idealistic notion of “completeness”.

Of the limited number of catalogs published for this occasion, one hundred were signed by Barnes at the end of his introduction. Each signed copy was numbered, as pictured.

The Truth about Dogs by Volker Kriegel (Bloomsbury, 1988)


Notes on this edition: First edition – Volker Kriegel. The Truth about Dogs. London: Bloomsbury, 1988. £4.95. Originally published as Kriegels Kleine Hunde-Kunde by Volker Kriegel. Translated and with an introduction by Julian Barnes. 

Descriptive Bibliography:

Title Page: THE TRUTH ABOUT | DOGS | Volker Kriegel | Translated and introduced by | Julian Barnes | [cartoon by Kriegel] | BLOOMSBURY

Copyright Page: First published in Great Britain 1988 | Originally published under the title Kriegels Kleine | Hunde-Kunde by Haffmans Verlag | Copyright © 1986 by Haffmans Verlag | Introduction and translation © 1988 | by Julian Barnes | Guist dog on page 1 drawn by Tatjana Hauptmann | Bloomsbury Publishing Limited, | 2 Soho Square, London W1V 5DE | British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data | Kriegel, Volker | The truth about dogs. | 1. German humorous cartoons—Collection | from individual artists | 1. Title | 741.5’943 | ISBN 0 7475 0232 3 | Printed in Great Britain by | Butler & Tanner Limited, Frome

Collation: 15.4 x 9.2 cm. Pp. [1-6] 7-121 [122-128]. [1]: ‘The Truth About Dogs | [drawing of dog]’. [2]: blank. [3]: title page. [4]: copyright page. [5]: ‘For Ev | but also for Juli, Nico, Joles | and all the others’.  [6]: [drawing of dog]. 7-10: [introduction by Julian Barnes]. 11-121: text. [122-128]: blank.

General description: Binding 16 x 9.7 cm. Yellow boards, gold blocked on spine. White endpapers. Cream dust jacket lettered in black and yellow. Upper panel of jacket features a black and blue illustration of a dog crying at a full moon with ‘BLOOMSBURY’ across bottom

Conversaciones con Aristóteles by Jonathan Barnes (Ediciones Oniro, 2008; Spanish)


Notes on this edition: Barnes, Jonathan. Conversaciones con Aristóteles. Barcelona: Ediciones Oniro, 2008. Translated by Gemma Gallart. 171 p. 15 cm. ISBN: 9788497543439. Foreword by Julian Barnes (pp. 9-13).

The Spanish edition of Jonathan Barnes’s fictional conversation with Aristotle includes a translation of Julian Barnes’s foreword included in the English edition.

Auf einen Kaffee mit Aristoteles by Jonathan Barnes (Deutscher Taschenbuch, 2010; German)


Notes on this edition: Barnes, Jonathan. Auf einen Kaffee mit Aristoteles. (Deutscher Taschenbuch, 2010). Translated by Mara-Daria Cojocaru. 124 p. 14 cm. ISBN: 9783423345927. Foreword by Julian Barnes (pp. 7-10).

The German edition of Jonathan Barnes’s fictional conversation with Aristotle includes a translation of Julian Barnes’s foreword included in the English edition.

Coffee with Aristotle by Jonathan Barnes (Duncan Baird, 2008; Foreword)


Notes on this edition: Barnes, Jonathan. Coffee with Aristotle. London: Duncan Baird, 2008. 144 p. 15 cm. ISBN: 9781844836109; Foreword by Julian Barnes  (pp. 6-9).

The Coffee with … series features fictional conversations between noted scholars and the subjects of their studies — authors, philosophers, artists, etc. Aristotle scholar Jonathan Barnes authored this edition, and his brother Julian Barnes wrote the introduction. At the end of the introduction, the publisher has included a facsimile signature of the author, as pictured.

Dictionary of Received Ideas (Syrens, 1994; Preface)


Notes on this edition: Flaubert, Gustave. The Dictionary of Received Ideas. London: Syrens, 1994. Translated by Geoffrey Wall. Preface by Julian Barnes (pp. v-xi).

Syrens is a division of Penguin books, and they released this small, thin paperback edition of Flaubert’s The Dictionary of Received Ideas in 1994. They Syrens series included several titles of note, including James Fenton’s slim publication On Statues (1995) and Proust’s On Reading (1995).

For the Flaubert edition, Julian Barnes provides a preface in the format of a dictionary with one entry per letter. This format resembles (but is entirely different in content from) the dictionary chapter in his novel Flaubert’s Parrot.