Introduction: Stepping up behind a Carriage rather than Getting into One

In Walter Scott's The Antiquary (1816) an amusing incident takes place that illustrates some of the main issues at stake in this chapter. The eccentric bibliomaniac, Jonathan Oldbuck, proposes to the novel's hero, Major Neville (going under the assumed name of ‘Lovel’), that they write an epic poem together, to be entitled ‘The Caledoniad; or, Invasion Repelled’. Oldbuck suggests that his companion write the verse, while he offers to compose ‘critical and historical notes’. Much of the scene's humour turns on Oldbuck's attempt to invert the conventional hierarchy between note and text. According to Oldbuck, the annotator is ‘an architect’ – a creator, who plans, constructs and frames the text – while the poet is merely a ‘stonemason’ carrying out his designs. Neville observes that Oldbuck's practice ‘resembled stepping up behind a carriage [rather] than getting into one’, suggesting that annotation provided a covert form of authorship, offering the writer the prestige of being a published author without the same critical scrutiny, and a secluded location from which to take pot-shots at the work of others. Nonetheless, Oldbuck promises: ‘I'll annihilate Ossian, Macpherson and Mac-Cribb’, dismissing poetry as ‘the mere mechanical department’.

The existence of this passage in a popular novel suggests that collaborative annotated volumes were a familiar concept to readers of the time.