The writer of the nearly 20-year-old literary blog the Marginalian has long fretted over how many of her favorite books are out of print. Now, her new imprint—a collaboration with McNally Jackson owner Sarah McNally—is bringing back some handpicked hidden gems.
What are the origins of Marginalian Editions?
Sarah was over at my house one day, and I was lamenting that I often find myself reading beautiful literature that’s inaccessible to most people since it’s not available online. I said how I felt I should do something about it. She said, “Why don’t we start an imprint?”
Sarah is the most optimistic, actionable person, and she told me to draft a list of books I’d love to see republished. It felt like the natural consequence of my discontent. We settled on about a dozen out-of-print titles and decided to publish three of them a year, with covers for the inaugural list designed by Margaret Harring at McNally Jackson.
Can you talk about one of the inaugural titles?
The Muriel Rukeyser biography of scientist Willard Gibbs is the reason why we started this imprint. It’s an extraordinarily challenging book, but it’s easy in the sense that the prose embraces you. It has serious science and history in it, things that aren’t comfortable to read, and yet I know that for those who choose to read it, it will change their lives. Being taken out of your comfort zone is important, and you’ll be rewarded for it. I see it as a little gift to the future.
You’ve called the imprint “an act of resistance to the erasures of culture.” How so?
There’s so much writing that goes to die and, with that, we narrow our scope of knowledge. The internet is only a few decades deep, while the written word is several thousands years deep.
