Author-ity and textuality : current views of collaborative writing /

Other than the NCTE's (National Council of Teachers of English) Collaboration through Writing and Reading: Exploring Possibilities, by Dyson (1989), and the specialized Collaborative Writing in Industry: Investigations in Theory and Practice, edited by Lay and Karis (1991), few books have been published about collaborative writing. This volume, consisting of an introduction, 13 essays, and an excellent annotated "A Browser's Bibliography," is a resourceful contribution to the field. From overviews of collaboration in modern society through a discussion of multiple voices and shifting authority, the essays deal with the complicated process of the relationship of authors to texts. T.S. Eliot/Ezra Pound and Thomas Wolfe/Maxwell Perkins are frequently cited. Of particular interest is M. Thomas Inge's "Mark Twain and Dan Beard's Collaborative Connecticut Yankee" illustrated with 32 line drawings from the 1889 novel. Without Beard's depictions A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court would be an entirely different book. Of the other essays, it is ironic that "Breaking the Silence: Collaboration and the Isolationist Paradigm," a collaborative effort by Leonard and Wharton, is the least readable selection in the book. Recommended for all academic libraries. S. W. Whyte; Montgomery County Community College