Novels. An “Abstract” of each novel provides the reader with some idea of its content but without giving the plot away. As it was found to be extremely time consuming, even with research assistants, to read through every novel in order to provide an abstract, we resorted to quoting excerpts from the description found on the back cover, if it’s a paperback (which most of the novels tend to be). It is not uncommon for authors to write it themselves and the description is thus usually reliable. In any case, that which is judged to be merely publisher’s “blurb” would be edited out.  An “Abstract” may also consist of an excerpt from the websites of the novel’s publisher, booksellers like the local specialist book shop Select Books or Amazon, or from a book review and so on, if these were found to be reasonably informative, or more conveniently accessible than the book. When no acknowledged source is provided, the “Abstract” can be assumed to have either originated from the compiler or a research assistant who has read the novel. For lack of time and resources (each book having to be physically checked for its contents to be abstracted, and an alternative source found if the information on the back cover is inadequate or the book is unavailable) not every novel is provided, at the moment, with an abstract, but most are.  As soon as possible, all such gaps will be filled in time as additions to a digitized bibliography, unlike to a print bibliography, can be made continually anytime, over time. Even current “Abstracts” can be further refined.

 

Short Stories. This is the most popular form, the most widely published in terms of numbers appearing in authors’ individual collections, in anthologies, periodicals and series. As a service to readers and researchers who might wish to track them through a search, the authors and titles of short stories found in anthologies and periodicals as well as the titles of short stories found in an author’s own collection, are listed under “Contents.” The short story section is also swollen by the potentially controversial inclusion of the many collections and series of ghost stories. But it seems to me, they really cannot be ignored, if only because of their immense popularity. As importantly, these are in the Bibliography partly because they are short stories in form and partly because the ghost stories reflect the varied purposes the form could be made to serve. Significantly, the authors range from an established writer like Catherine Lim (who was among the earliest writers to sense the trend in 1983), the academic, K.K. Seet, and the late esteemed Singapore Literary Pioneer Goh Sin Tub to the popular pseudonymous, punning “Russell Lee” with his “Team of Ghost Writers” and Pugalenthi, Sr. (also known as Pugalenthii) whose output almost rivals that of Russell Lee. Another reason for including them is that they reflect what the fiction-reading public has been most avidly interested in reading since 1989 when Russell Lee’s first collection was the unexpected best seller at the Singapore Book Fair that year.

 

 

Poetry. Although the titles of short stories in individual collections are listed in each entry and the authors named alongside the titles of their stories in anthologies or periodicals under “Contents”, the titles of poems are not listed in individual collections, while only the names of the poets are mentioned to indicate that their poems are to be found in an anthology or periodical.  It was decided that the poems were mostly too many to list under each item in the original print bibliography.  A search will still yield information about when a poet was first published, where (such as firstly in a local or overseas periodical, then his/her own collection, then in an anthology and so on).  As in the short story entries,  “Notes”  provide significant information such as existence of a Foreword or Introduction and by whom, its being a limited edition, posthumously published, an award or awards won by the volume or poet, name of artist and title of painting featured on the cover if provided in the publication (it was a practice of the pioneer and other writers  to feature  complementary works of then leading artists)  and so on.

 

 

Drama.  As with the short stories, titles of plays in the playwright’s own collections will be given,  and both the name of the playwright and the title of the play will also be provided when they appear in anthologies and periodicals.  While plays were essentially written to be staged or performed, they are included because play scripts are collected and published, sometimes anthologized and are often studied as literary or school texts.  Although most plays staged inSingapore are not published, some exist in typescripts deposited in and catalogued by the National Library which, since 1993, has actively encouraged playwrights and other Singaporean writers to donate their  manuscripts. Other play scripts are donated by theatre groups. These sometimes come with production notes or are subsequently attached to the programme notes of the play after it has been staged). Yet others began life as entries to a play writing competition and were subsequently deposited with the Library, but may or may not have been staged.   Inclusion of these scripts is meant to alert readers, researchers and those who may wish to stage these plays, to their existence, availability and even to their history. The dates when the plays were staged, directors, cast members and venues are  recorded in the “Notes” to each entry, whenever the information can be found at hand from the publication itself, from the programme notes or other sources. But because the sources tend to be erratic, the documentation and information is not comprehensive, complete or consistently  included. More research needs to be done and will be. Any relevant new details will be entered as and when discovered and the record will be updated. Since the publication of the print version of the Bibliography in 2008, some of the typescripts have been collected, edited and published.  These publications accordingly appear in the updated digital version.

 

 

Anthologies.  This section contains anthologies of literary works or “creative writing” by Singaporeans compiled, edited and published locally, as well as anthologies which include Singaporean works but were compiled, edited and published abroad. Others (usually anthologies from the 1950s to early1970s) may be compilations of both Singapore and Malayan/ Malaysian writing  (eg, Thumboo’s The Second Tongue: an Anthology of Poetry from Malaysia and Singapore, 1976) because Singapore was once considered part of Malaya and subsequently was once part of Malaysia, the writing in English being thereby linked historically.

 

Periodicals. These are magazines or journals published in Singapore and abroad containing  literary works by resident ‘locals’ (not expatriates) from the time when Singapore was part of the Straits Settlements to the present – from the earliest The Straits Chinese Magazine (1897) which published some fiction in English to the latest literary magazine to appear to date, the NUS Literary Society’s Argot (2008) the successor to Focus, and which meet at least one of the following criteria:

Library holdings of some important journals are fragmented and we hope that with the information provided here, readers who possess the missing issues will donate them to fill the gaps in the  holdings of  the National Library and the National University of  Singapore Library.

 

Electronic Journals.  Singapore never had and to date still does not have a nationally or internationally established print literary journal devoted to literature, literary criticism and reviews, let alone one devoted only to Singapore literature in English. The occasional valiant attempts to produce such a journal (eg, Impression, Hardpressed; Focus) were either unsustainable or not sustained.  Even the multilingual Singa: Literature and the Arts in Singapore sponsored by state agencies, lasted only 20 years. But in recent years, young writers and literary critics taking advantage of the relatively cheaper, more flexible and wider reach of an online medium, have founded and maintained e-journals to fill this void. Like their print predecessors they, too, can be transient (indeed, some are no longer to be found and or others are no longer current since the appearance of the print version of the Annotated Bibliography). But they, no less than the print journals, merit a mention.  Indeed, the surviving e-journals probably represent the future of literary periodicals and the digitized Annotated Bibliography will continue to track them, identify and record new ones as and when they emerge.

 

Ephemera. This section contains an otherwise unclassifiable form of publication.  These  ephemeral slim programmes, mostly  stapled booklets of mimeographed pages, are historically important,  unique products of the literary circumstances of the time when the literary scene was young and publication opportunities few.   In them will be found in print, poems read at literary and cultural events by then emerging and/or young unpublished, but now established writers like Goh Poh Seng, Arthur Yap, Lee Tzu Pheng  and others, alongside those  of eminent poet D.J. Enright and the young Paul Theroux who was to achieve international acclaim as fiction and travel writer. Enright was Head of the English Dept. and Theroux a lecturer at the then University of Singapore.  Known to and some owned by the compiler who was present on these occasions, these  programmes  are included to alert readers to the existence of some in the Singapore Malaysia Collection of NUS library, and others  in the Singapore National Library, but both have incomplete holdings.  Efforts are being made to solicit donations to fill in the gaps.

 

Unpublished  items. These represent an anomaly in a bibliography, but because they exist, are included for archival interest in the same spirit of the National Library’s intention when in 1993, it actively solicited Singaporean writers to donate their unpublished works  or manuscripts ‘to add to the country’s understanding of its literary heritage’.  These are usually typescripts, play scripts, manuscripts and writers’ early drafts, and even an occasional writer’s ‘ portfolio.’ They were either donated by the authors or were the winning entries of the National Short Story competition held in the 1980s and short-listed Singapore Literature Prize entries from the 1990s. Although not publications proper, they are included in the Annotated Bibliography partly to alert readers and researchers to their existence – that they are catalogued and available in the National Library – and partly because quite a few were eventually revised and published; some of the competition winners have eventually established themselves as well-known authors; and the unpublished items could be of particular interest to researchers, literary historians and others.

 

Repeated entries and changes in titles. As more popular titles or others chosen to be school literary texts tend to be either reprinted or re-issued in new editions, a title re-issued as a revised new edition or under a different imprint will be entered more than once in the Annotated Bibliography to alert the reader about their publication status. Each entry will have a note informing the reader of its year of first publication, and whether it is a first, a revised edition or an edition that has been re- issued later under a different imprint. Revised or new editions under different titles are also noted including changes in content, if any. Mere reprints of an edition by the same publisher are not entered. In the digital Annotated Bibliography, since the software provides for it, and for visual interest, the illustrated cover accompanying an entry is that of the reprint or edition held by NTU Library. Each new edition, expectedly, tends to have a fresh cover, but many reprints, even by the same publisher,  may also have new cover designs.

 

Authors’ names. What is entered in each section is the author’s name as it appears on the cover of the book concerned. It is usually the name (or pseudonym)  by which the author is known as a writer. In such cases, the author’s personal or full name will follow within square brackets (eg, Kon, S. [Stella] and Woon, Walter C. M. [Cheong Ming]). However, as Chinese surnames traditionally appear first, and in the West, surnames appear last (especially in works published in the West), and it is not always clear when rendered in English which is the surname, the author is listed by surname for consistency, while the name which appears on the book cover is given within square brackets (eg, Ho, Minfong [Minfong Ho]; Tan, Hwee Hwee [Hwee Hwee Tan]) and Yew, Chay [Chay Yew]). But when an author omits his surname altogether, he is listed according to the first letter of the name on the book cover (eg, Yen Chung [Chong, Yen Chung]). A note will inform the reader (if the information is available) whether the author also writes under another name or pseudonym (eg, that Joash Moo (listed as Moo, Joash) also writes under the name, Moo Z. Y. [Zun  Yong].

 

Cut-off date. The cut-off date of the original print Annotated Bibliography was December, 2007. But since digitization, it has been updated. Being digital it is now possible to be always current with continual updating. None the less, it is not unlikely that some items published before and up till  2007, or even after, may not have come to the attention of the compiler. We will be grateful if users can bring these or any other omissions as well as errors to our attention.

 

Annotations: Notes, Abstract, Contents, Location, Holdings,  Call No. and Location Codes.  A unique and it is hoped, a  useful feature of the Annotated Bibliography  is that each entry, besides the standard bibliographical information about author, title, imprint, year of publication, pagination, and so on, is annotated to provide other significant information as follows:

Notes: Provides significant information about the item either found in the publication or known to the compiler such as the cover illustration (including identification of significant painting on it and artist, cover or book designer as mentioned in the publication); existence of a Foreword, Preface or Introduction and provided by whom;  existence of a glossary;  literary award(s) won; whether this is the first published edition, a revised edition or a re-issue by a different publisher,  etc.  In the Periodicals section, the Notes provide information about library holdings, indicating where the gaps are, the journal’s publishing history, its predecessor and successor journals, if any, and so on, mostly drawn from the compiler’s personal knowledge. In the Drama section, the Notes additionally provide information (if known) about the  first staging or performance of the play.

 

Abstract: This summarizes the content of the item. Usually found in the Novels and Periodicals section, providing a brief description or summary of the story or content to give the reader an idea of what the novel or publication  may be about and sometimes what kind of novel to expect (eg. a thriller, detective novel, romance, young people’s fiction, etc.) In the Periodicals section, the Abstract describes or quotes the aims and scope, manifesto and other declaration of objectives which indicate what the focus and content of the journal might be.

 

Contents:  In the Short Stories section, this itemizes all the titles to be found in individual collections and in the Drama section, titles of plays. In the Anthologies and Periodicals sections both the authors and titles of short stories whose works appear in the publication are itemized, but only the names of the poets are listed because the sheer number of their poems would have made the original print bibliography large and unwieldy and the entry concerned far too lengthy. The same principle governed the non-listing of titles contained in the individual poetry collections.

 

Location, Holdings, Call No. and Location Codes.   Another unique feature of the Annotated Bibliography is information about the location and thus availability or accessibility of each title.  Since it is a legal requirement that at least 2 copies of  every title published in Singapore have to be submitted to the National Library (NL) and it therefore has holdings of most works, I decided to link the Annotated Bibliography to the NL holdings thereby informing users about where they can find and read these titles.  NL collection codes also indicate whether the titles are for reference only or may be borrowed home.  In those few instances when NL has no holdings of a title, readers are directed to another local library which has the title, usually the National University of Singapore (NUS) Central Library or the libraries of other institutions such as the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) and even, but very rarely, to the University of Malaya (UM) library, UM being the predecessor university of NUS.  For the convenience of users and ease of access as it is a public library, the  National Library’s Call No. for each title is provided. However, some titles are not held in any local library, but are listed here if their existence is known to and inspected by the compiler.  It is hoped that such items eventually will be acquired by or donated to NL or that photocopies of them could be made to fill in the gaps.

Additionally, as the digitized bibliography is an initiative of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Library not only as a service to the Singaporean public and global community but also to serve the NTU community, information is also provided with regard to the availability, location and call no. of each title within NTU’s own library system.