We talk about indexes with the author of the book Index, a History of the, Dennis Duncan, and its indexer, Paula Clarke Bain. Modern indexes date back eight centuries, and Dennis’s book takes us from the beginning to the present. Paula has worked for over 15 years as a professional indexer and produced nearly 900 indexes. She explains her working methods and the value of an index to the reader—and as an element of a book’s appeal.

This episode is sponsored by my book Six Centuries of Type & Printing. Find out more about the book and read an excerpt.

Dennis is a writer, translator, and lecturer in English at University College London, and the author also of Book Parts. He has appeared in the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, and the London Review of Books.

Paula is an indexer, copy editor, and proofreader. She has performed her indexing work on books covering such varied topics as Winston Churchill, Fry and Laurie, horror movies, Ted Hughes, musical modernism, the Peterloo Massacre, pigs in America, and the history of the vampire.

Show notes:

Dennis on Twitter

Paula’s website and on Twitter

Purchase Index, a History of the

The Society of Indexers, through which Paula trained for her career

Monograph on Walt Whitman as a printer

“A Font of Type”

Peter Schoeffer’s sales catalog noting an index

Paula’s index in the book Soupy Twists! about the careers of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, separately and together

Reading the Reprintings, my essay on how a book appears across printings within editions

An essay by scholars of the Lord of the Rings series on the authoritative version of the 50th anniversary editions

The indexical novel by Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

Kurt Vonnegut’s indexers on a plane in Cat’s Cradle

Paula’s index-minded review of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi