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Infinite Elvis: An Annotated Bibliography
Author: Mary Hancock Hinds
Published in paperback by A Capella Books
ISBN 1-55652-410-2
There has been a definite lack of Elvis books during the last year or so. Okay, we've had a few, but nothing like the usual output -- not that this is such a bad thing, given the quality (and I use the word in its loosest sense) of much of what I've read. I suppose most authors and publishers are waiting for 2002 and the magic 25th.
Fortunately, this is not the case with Mary Hancock Hinds, whose several years of hard work have resulted in "Infinite Elvis: An Annotated Bibliography." I have personally been waiting for a a publication like this for quite some time, being a collector of books about Elvis: the need for a decent bibliography has been evident for a long time. Just over a year ago, Stephen Opdyke's impressively titled and advertised "The Printed Elvis" seemed to answer this requirement, but it was no more than a pathetic attempt, listing less than five hundred titles and marred by extremely poor research, which led to the very sad situation where many of the titles included actually had nothing to do with Elvis: it was more a catalogue of errors than a catalogue of books.
"Infinite Elvis" is clearly a far more professional effort. No, "professional" is not the correct description -- try "dedicated" instead and you will better understand the care and attention that has gone into this astonishing work of reference. Mary Hinds seems to have scoured the libraries and collections of the world to arrive at more than 1700 titles linked to Elvis, the majority of which are books, though a number of important articles and dissertations are also included.
The cover of "Infinite Elvis" shows a very appropriate photo of Elvis lying on a couch, reading "The Elvis Presley Album No.2." Following a brief introduction and an excellent "Prologue," in which Hinds examines the importance of Elvis literature, the 512 pages of the actual bibliography begin. Hinds has carefully classified the titles into six main areas: The Man; The Music, The Movies; The Phenomena; The Academics; Foreign Language Titles; The Rest. These are subdivided into sections devoted to a particular aspect (for example, The Phenomena has no less than 20 sections, including Comic Books, The Law, and Race). Each subsection makes up a chapter of the book, of which there are 48 in total. A 34-page index follows the chapters to complete the bibliography. Oh, and if this were not all enough, there are 8 pages of illustrations, too!
Each chapter is preceded by a brief essay discussing the area concerned (and if you ever wondered what being an Elvis fan is all about, read the four-paragraph essay introducing Chapter 23, "Fans"). The titles are listed within each chapter by author; each title is accompanied by publishing details, more often than not by a brief review, and an indication of the source of the information, often taking the form of a web address (URL). Clearly this covers just about everything the casual reader need know when considering buying an Elvis book, but the vast number of titles included makes "Infinite Elvis" a must for even the most serious collector: did you know, for example, that there is a first-person account of the evening that John Lennon and the other Beatles met Elvis? And what is especially pleasing about "Infinite Elvis" is that the author has included over 300 references to foreign titles, an area so frequently overlooked by American writers on other aspects of Elvis. Of course many of the non-English titles are translations, but, Hinds has gone so far in her research as to discover original titles in less well-known languages, such as Basque, Thai and Welsh! And isn't it a testament to Elvis's enormous popularity that books about him are translated into Icelandic?
I was able to locate just a few shortcomings in the whole bibliography: some translations have been omitted and the CD which accompanied one publication is not mentioned; furthermore "Elvis Special" was published for a few years longer than is indicated in "Infinite Elvis." Pretty minor things, considering the huge amount of information and potential for error in this wonderful bibliography. Every library should have one -- and every home, too!
David Neale Copyright February 2001