Unica

 August 2 Unica 

A book of which there is only one copy in the world, by chance or design, is called a unica, or sometimes unicum. A collection of such books might be called unicas. Georges Perec is where I first encountered the term, not surprisingly given the Frenchman’s delight in the curiosities of literature which he puts, not in a cabinet of curiosities, but page one in the centre. Writers the world over live with the sense the manuscript they are working on could remain, for eternity, a unica. Many handmade books are unicas. It happens that the University of Illinois has initiated a Project Unica “to produce high quality facsimiles of printed books that exist in only one copy.” Preservation must be one objective, though the university says it is “to provide a simple and efficient way of getting this valuable and unique information to scholars when and where they need it.” The university does not say what it does then with the original copy, but we would like to believe it is not the procedure reported today inside Automatic Increase (AI) copying operations. It seems that second-hand booksellers are being inundated with bulk orders for unusual, out-of-date, and rare books from certain companies, that then cut up the book for easy scanning only to throw away the original. The sellers say they are not concerned about those Gutenberg descendants available in thousands, but do not mail a unica to Active Invisibles (AI) on principle. The vision that emerges is unresplendent: a unique monograph is destroyed after being replaced by an intangible digital substitute, its fungibility questionable. With only the digital version in existence, and no catalogue proof of its original, can I be certain of its authenticity? The university is at pains to claim their facsimiles are high quality for good reason: the history of reprint companies in the past three decades is speckled with smudgy text that says something different from the original. The argument being, only the original will always state clearly, print face in cloth paper, what is actually being said. There is also the possibility of creatives producing unica online from the Reformation or Enlightenment that never had an original, that is to say, are hoaxes. The publication date may read AD MDC (1600) even when, to be accurate, it should read AI (Anno Ingenium) MMXXVI (2026). Shakespeare could say more things than are dreamt of in your philosophy or are currently attributed to him in the First Folio. What an opportunity for Brainless Bards! Authorial Inventiveness (AI) can invent text to suit from every period style, as well as inventing the author who made the text. While this is likely to generate unica all of its own, whether anyone will want or trust such productions is doubtful. The books they imitate, or rip off in fact, are not being made with a reader in mind.