# I'm Considering Skipping Book Introductions
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** books-writing-myths
**Created:** [January 20, 2025, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174 "2025-01-20T19:09:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/21 "2025-01-21T02:58:27Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#):
>
> It is my considered opinion that no literary work has ever been improved by having an English professor analyze it before or during your first reading of it.
It is my considered opinion that few are improved by having an English professor analyze it afterwards.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/22 "2025-01-21T03:06:44Z")
I’ve read some really great forewords/afterwords in books. Not sure if they were all English professors, authors, or something else though.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/23 "2025-01-21T03:09:47Z")
I am really bad with names, both real and fictional, and frequently lose track of who is who in a big complicated book. But that information is best served in an appendix, at the end of the book. And most books come with a handy table of contents, that includes information like what’s in the appendices.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/24 "2025-01-21T03:13:59Z")
Ngaio Marsh generally had a dramatis personae in her mystery novels. No surprise, considering her theatrical background. I always found them helpful.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/25 "2025-01-21T03:17:34Z")
Also, i was amused, rereading a late edition of the Lord of the Rings, to notice that the author’s forward, “about hobbits”, not only explains that “yes, they really did have tobacco”, but also, tells you that almost all of the major characters survive and lived happily ever after. It explains that this story was copied from the book of Frodo’s notes, sent by Meriadoc’s son to the son of Faramir, and that Pippin’s descendants also kept a copy in the Hobbiton library, which was endowed by Sam’s daughter, and… I made up those details, but they are close to what’s in the forward, and the vast majority of the main characters who do survive the story are mentioned. (And Gandalf isn’t.)
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/26 "2025-01-21T03:47:04Z")
A roommate had a single-volume copy of the first three _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ books, which had a rather lengthy introduction telling the history of the series, from radio programme to books and international fame. I found the introduction fascinating, but gave up on the actual story after the first chapter.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/27 "2025-01-21T03:59:42Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> It explains that this story was copied from the book of Frodo’s notes, sent by Meriadoc’s son to the son of Faramir, and that Pippin’s descendants also kept a copy in the Hobbiton library, which was endowed by Sam’s daughter, and… I made up those details, but they are close to what’s in the forward, and the vast majority of the main characters who do survive the story are mentioned.
To be specific, the original Red Book of Westmarch (containing Bilbo’s account of the Quest for Erebor, the Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King, and the Translations From the Elvish which comprise the Silmarilion) was lost, but a copy was made by Pippin at King Aragorn’s request, to which Faramir’s grandson made some additions, and a copy of that copy was subsequently returned to the Shire, and that copy is what the Professor translated from Westron into English.
> **[Red Book of Westmarch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_of_Westmarch)**
>
> The Red Book of Westmarch (sometimes the Thain's Book\[T 1\] after its principal version) is a fictional manuscript written by hobbits, related to the author J. R. R. Tolkien's frame stories. It is an instance of the found manuscript literary device, to explain the source of his legendarium. In the fiction, it is a collection of writings in which the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were recounted by their characters, and from which Tolkien supposedly derived these and other wor...
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/28 "2025-01-21T04:20:12Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> Reading intros after you’ve read the book seems like a good idea.
That’s exactly what I do, if I even bother to read the introduction.
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/29 "2025-01-21T12:45:40Z")
I read that before reading the book but somewhow it didn’t spoil anything, because at that point the hobbits are just names to you, and, not knowing their significance you mostly don’t connect the “Meriadoc” mentioned in the prologue with good old Merry ~~Brandigamo~~ Brandybuck.
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### Author:  [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/30 "2025-01-21T13:05:24Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> Come to think of it, there haven’t been any introductions that I recall made me glad I read them.
I rarely read introductions nowadays, but in the days before Wikipedia I occasionally enjoyed biographical information about the author (e.g. Charles Dickens or Herman Melville) along with general historical background.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/31 "2025-01-21T13:42:03Z")
Even if none of the names mean anything, you probably were aware at some level that the Shire still existed, years later. And there was an orderly world where people requested books and copied them in libraries. That doesn’t sound like Mordor. I think Tolkien did, intentionally, spoil the ending in the preface.
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/32 "2025-01-21T13:44:25Z")
By the time I was _really_ aware of the danger to the shire (say about the Council of Elrond) I didn’t remember much about the prologue, it helped that I was reading the book in a public library where I went about once a week, so I took about a month to get there hehehe.
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### Author:  [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/33 "2025-01-21T14:26:04Z")
> [@Jaycat.again](#):
>
> Spoiler: I made it to about pg. 150.
Of the introduction or of the book?
> [@Frodo](#):
>
> the prologue with good old Merry ~~Brandigamo~~ Brandybuck.
Funny they translated the names (well, some of them) and they still did not make sense.
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### Author:  [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/34 "2025-01-21T20:42:46Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#):
>
> BTW I adore East of Eden and believe it is one of the best novels ever written. It might be The Great American Novel.
About 40 years ago I’d never read any Steinbeck and randomly selected **East Of Eden** to see what was what. The result was my spending the next few months binge reading all the rest of his books. The only one I couldn’t get into was **Travels With Charley**. Go figure.
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### Author:  [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/35 "2025-01-21T22:19:27Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#):
>
> _BTW I adore East of Eden and believe it is one of the best novels ever written. It might be The Great American Novel._
I enjoyed _East of Eden_ but as a major Steinbeck fan, I’ve always favored _The Grapes of Wrath_ for “The Great American Novel” with “Eden” a close second.
Now that you have me thinking about it, though, I might just give _East of Eden_ another read. It’s been years.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2025, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-considering-skipping-book-introductions/1013174/36 "2025-01-21T23:33:14Z")
Count me as another admirer of _East of Eden_. It was probably my favorite of the books I had to read for Senior AP English in high school, and I relatively recently re-read it to see if it held up (it did).
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