In praise of “minor” works of literature
What, though, is that happy cliché of literary criticism, a "minor" work? Surely not, prima facie, a work by a minor writer, since we’re told major writers produce their share. Yet if major writers produce minor works without losing their mark of heaven, doesn’t fairness dictate that minor writers can produce major works without losing their stigmata?
Issues of that sort emanate from one of the most beguiling publishing start-ups in recent times, England’s Hesperus Press (distributed in the United States by Trafalgar Square Books, in North Pomfret, Vt.). Alessandro Gallenzi and Elisabetta Minervini, the Italian husband-and-wife translating team who started the line in London two years ago, say their beautiful paperbacks are "dedicated to bringing near what is far — far in both space and time." Their specialty? "Works by illustrious authors, often unjustly neglected or simply little known in the English-speaking world."
— Carlin Romano, "Hesperus Readers Must be Accompanied by a Minor" (The Chronicle Review, 1/23/04)
I want to work for Hesperus Press. What a nifty idea, to make the "minor" classics accessible in paperback. Any press that publishes Jane Austen’s Love and Friendship — her very early parody of the epistolary novel, which contains the absolutely priceless line "We fainted alternately on a sofa" — gets my vote of approval.
Ah ha. I always wondered which one had the famous sofa line in it. Now you’ve solved the mystery for me.