Wednesday, September 29, 2010

What a character

I was browsing through the Kindle store and accidentally ended up in the book category "Biographies and Memoirs." Among the actual biographies and memoirs, I was surprised to come across Glinda of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. Later I saw Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. Good books, wrong cyber-shelf.

Back when I taught home-schooled students online, my local paper did an article about my job, and the reporter quoted me as saying that Jane Eyre was one of my favorite novelists.

Let's just get this straight. Jane Eyre, italicized, is a novel. Jane Eyre, not italicized, is a character in the novel Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte is the novelist who wrote Jane Eyre about Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is fiction; Jane Eyre is a fictional character.

Ditto Glinda of Oz, Glinda of Oz, and L. Frank Baum.

1 comment:

flask said...

thank you for caring about these things.