Classifying Works by and about Individual Literary Authors of the 20th and 21st Centuries:  An Introduction


This document covers general principles and patterns of LC classification for 20th-century and 21st-century literary authors.  It is intended to be used in conjunction with consulting LC literature classification schedules.

For specific procedures, see "Verifying and Assigning Classification and Call Numbers for 20th- and 21st-Century Literary Authors."

Document sections

General principle Evaluating a literary author's class number
Literary call number structure


I.  General principle

One goal of LC classification is to keep together all literary works by a single author in a single language.  LC assigns a specific classification number or range of numbers to each literary author with whom it deals; more than one separate number is assigned in those exceptional cases when the author writes in more than one language (e.g., Samuel Beckett).  This policy of keeping literary works together contrasts with the classification of works on particular topics, where the subject determines the classification number and the same author will have works scattered throughout the shelflist if (s)he writes on different subjects.

Twentieth-century and twenty-first-century authors:  20th-century and 21st-century authors are assigned a single class number, usually with a cutter.  This number is structured based on:

A second cutter is included in the call number, usually based on title.


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II.  Literary Call Number Structure

Sections II.A-II.C. deal with the classification number.

Section II.D. deals with the remainder of the call number.

Broad classification by letter First cutter
Letter-plus-number combination Second cutter

A.  Broad classification by letterLanguage, occasionally nationality

Language and literature are covered in the P schedules.

Some of the major broad classifications:

PQ      Romance literature
    (for the better-known Romance languages:  French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese)

PR      English-language literature other than U.S. literature

PS      U.S. literature

PT      Germanic literatures
    (German; Dutch, Flemish, and Afrikaans; and Scandinavian)


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B.  Letter-plus-number combination:  Indicates:

  1. Nationality or cluster of nationalities.  For example, Latin American authors are classified by specific nationality.  On the other hand, European authors are often clustered:  the same letter-plus-number combinations are used for authors writing in French of French, Belgian, or Swiss nationality or those writing in German of any European nationality.

  2. Period of writing.  This category is generally based on the period during which the majority of the author’s books were written.  While the periods may vary, the most common pattern for the 20th century is to have two periods:

    So far, class numbers for authors writing in the 21st century are designated simply for:

    sometimes:

  3. First letter of author’s heading (usually the first letter of the author’s surname).

One cannot generalise too much about the pattern of this letter-plus-number-combination, because the structure can vary from language to language and from one period to another.

Examples for the 20th and 21st centuries:

PS3523 = U.S. authors writing in English 1900-1960 with headings beginning with “L”

PS3562 = U.S. authors writing in English 1961-2000 with headings beginning with “L”

PS3612 = U.S. authors writing in English 2001- with headings beginning with “L”

PQ2605 = European authors writing in French 1900-1960 with headings beginning with “C”

PQ2663 = European authors writing in French 1961-2000 with headings beginning with "C”

PQ2703 = European authors writing in French 2001- with headings beginning with "C”

PQ3919.2 = Canadian authors writing in French 1961-2000
(note that this level of the class number does not specify anything about the author heading)

PQ3919.3 = Canadian authors writing in French 2001-
(note that this level of the class number does not specify anything about the author heading)

PQ6664 = Spanish authors (i.e., of Spanish nationality) writing in Spanish 1961-2000 with headings beginning with “N”

PQ6714 = Spanish authors (i.e., of Spanish nationality) writing in Spanish 2001- with headings beginning with “N”

PQ7298.24 = Mexican authors writing in Spanish 1961-2000 with headings beginning with “N”

PQ7298.424 = Mexican authors writing in Spanish 2001- with headings beginning with “N”

PQ7519.2 = Nicaraguan authors writing in Spanish 1961-2000
(note that this level of the class number does not specify anything about the author heading)

PQ7519.3 = Nicaraguan authors writing in Spanish 2001-
(note that this level of the class number does not specify anything about the author heading)

PT2678 = European authors writing in German 1961-2000 with headings beginning with “R”

PT2718 = European authors writing in German 2001- with headings beginning with “R”

While you do not need to memorise any of these combinations, some of them may become familiar to you.

A more unusual pattern is for a class number to reflect the language and nationality but not to vary according to the period of writing.  An example:

PR9309.9 = Chilean authors writing in English (during any time period)

Please note:  These examples and subsequent discussion do not include the very unusual pattern that applies when an author writes in an obscure language that is assigned only a cutter number.  In such cases, the author can only be reflected in the second cutter.


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C.  First cutterAuthor cutter, specific cutter for the individual author.

  1. If the letter-plus-number portion of the class number in B. above covered the first letter of the heading, the author cutter begins with the second letter of the heading.

    Examples:

    PS3523.O46London, Jack, 1876-1916 [U.S.]
    PS3523.U26Ludlum, Robert, 1927-2001[U.S.]
    PQ2605.A3734Camus, Albert, 1913-1960[French]
    PQ2605.O28Colette, 1873-1954[French]
    PQ7298.24.A92Navarrete, Raúl, 1942-[Mexican]
    PQ7298.24.O79Norzagaray, Angel, 1961- [Mexican]

  2. If the letter-plus-number portion of the class number in B. above did not cover the heading, the author cutter begins with the first letter of the heading.

    Examples:

    PQ3919.2.B283Barcelo, François, 1941- [French-Canadian]
    PQ3919.2.T73Tremblay, Michel, 1942- [French-Canadian]
    PQ7519.2.B44Belli, Gioconda, 1948- [Nicaraguan]
    PQ7519.2.R25Ramírez, Sergio, 1942- [Nicaraguan]


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D.  Second cutter (‡b)Book cutter, title cutter, or work cutter.

The second cutter reflects the book itself.  It is often based on:

It also may reflect:

For 20th-century authors, the second cutter is usually based on the schedule P-PZ Languages and Literature Tables, Table P-PZ40.


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III.  Evaluating a literary author’s class number

Basic pattern
Special problems

A.  Basic pattern:

When considering whether the class number is appropriate for the author, it is helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Does the broad letter classification correspond to the language in which the original edition of the work was written?

    Be careful that the language represented is not a language of translation.  For example, an Italian novel translated into English should be classified under PQ (for Italian), not PR or PS (for English).

  2. Does the letter-plus-number combination correspond to the nationality of the author?

    Naturally, this correspondence can only be checked if you can determine the nationality of the author.  Biographical information in the book (often the back cover) or on the jacket may help.  Place of publication may be a clue but is not always reliable; still, you may generally fall back on the country of publication if there is no other information, particularly if several books by that author have been published in the same country.

    E.g.    PQ4835.I7 for:  Pirandello, Luigi, 1867-1936

    Blurb on back of book calls Pirandello one of the most outstanding Italian writers of the twentieth century.

    PQ4835 = Italian authors writing 1900-1960 with headings beginning with “P”

    E.g.    PQ7499.2.A73 for: Arias, Arturo, 1950-

    Book in hand as well as most other records in Voyager for books by Arias show place of publication as Guatemala.

    PQ7499.2 = Guatemalan authors writing 1961-2000

    For more problematic situations, see below, “Uncertain nationality.”

  3. Does the letter-plus-number combination correspond to the primary period during which the author wrote?

    One clue to this issue may be the author’s dates.  For example, an author who died in 1946 should not have a class number for authors writing 1961-2000.  On the other hand, an author born in 1962 would have to have begun writing after 1961, as would almost all authors born 1940 or later.

    E.g.    PQ4835.I7 for:  Pirandello, Luigi, 1867-1936

    Blurb on back of book calls Pirandello one of the most outstanding Italian writers of the twentieth century.

    PQ4835 = Italian authors writing 1900-1960 with headings beginning with “P”

    E.g.    PQ7499.2.A73 for: Arias, Arturo, 1950-

    PQ7499.2 = Guatemalan authors writing 1961-2000

  4. If the letter-plus-number combination incorporates the representation of the first letter of the author’s heading, does it represent the correct letter?

    E.g.    PQ4835.I7 for: Pirandello, Luigi, 1867-1936

    PQ4835 = Italian authors writing 1900-1960 with headings beginning with “P”

  5. Does the author cutter begin with the correct letter?

    One relatively common error is for a class number to use the first letter of an author’s heading when it should use the second number, or vice versa.

    E.g.    PQ4835.I7 for: Pirandello, Luigi, 1867-1936

    PQ4835 = Italian authors writing 1900-1960 with headings beginning with “P”

    .I7 correctly represents second letter

    PQ4835.P57 would be incorrect

    E.g.    PQ7499.2.A73 for:  Arias, Arturo, 1950-

    PQ7499.2 = Guatemalan authors writing 1961-2000

    .A73 correctly represents first letter

    PQ7499.2.R524 would be incorrect


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B.  Special problems:

Multiple languages Changed class number ranges
Uncertain nationality Changed author headings

  1. Multiple languages:  Literary authors who actually write in multiple languages can be assigned a separate, valid class number for each language.  You need to ascertain the language of the original edition of each work to determine the appropriate class number for any given work.

    E.g.    Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989

    For works originally written in English:      PR6003.E282
    For works originally written in French:      PQ2603.E378

    E.g.    Dorfman, Ariel.

    For works originally written in Spanish:      PQ8098.14.O7
    For works originally written in English:       PR9309.9.D67

  2. Uncertain nationality — especially if there is no biographical information or if the author has lived in more than one country.  If an author’s country of citizenship is known, that country should determine the classification, but dual citizenship presents problems.  Writers in exile (e.g., Chileans living abroad during the 1970s and 1980s) and expatriate writers often are tricky to classify.

    E.g.    Dorfman, Ariel.

    For works originally written in Spanish:      PQ8098.14.O7
          [PQ8098.14 = Chilean authors writing in Spanish 1961-2000 with headings
          beginning with “D”]
    For works originally written in English:      PR9309.9.D67
          [PR9309.9 = Chilean authors writing in English]

    Dorfman continues to be classified and identified as a Chilean author.  A resident in the US since 1980 who has begun to write in English as well as Spanish, as of 1996 he was still described in one book as “chileno de origen argentino.”  [Chilean, of Argentine origin]  Since the ending of military dictatorship in Chile, he has divided his time between the US and Chile.

    E.g.    PS3509.L43:  for:  Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965

    T.S. Eliot is classified as a U.S. author.  Although he spent most of his adult life in England (from 1914 until his death in 1965), wrote most of his works there, became a British citizen in 1927, and is buried in England, he was born in St. Louis, Missouri.

    Generally, search for evidence that such an author has actually changed citizenship; otherwise, such authors are generally classified with their country of original citizenship.

    Without any information on citizenship, you may need to look at factors such as:

    Finally, for existing class numbers used by LC, the Classification and Shelflisting Manual states (Section F632):  “Once a decision has been made to class an author with a particular country, this number will usually continue to be used.  Do not change the number unless the original choice was clearly in error.”  (This position may account for the use of a U.S. number for T.S. Eliot.)

  3. Changed class number ranges:  Authors in countries, particularly former colonies, that fall into class number ranges that LC has changed in the past, expanding the literature class schedules to give now-independent areas their own class ranges.  The author’s number in a given record may be obsolete, especially if the author was active prior to the 1960s.

    E.g.    Césaire, Aimé.      A Caribbean author writing in French.

    The correct class number is now: PQ3949.C44
          [PQ3949 = West Indian French-language authors through 1960]

    However, older records may still have an obsolete number for Césaire:
          PQ2605.E74
          [PQ2605 is now used only for European authors writing in French, 1900-1960]

  4. Changed author headings:  Please note that once LC has established a literary class number for an author, this number should continue to be used even if the author’s heading changes.  Therefore, in some cases the letter-plus-number combination and/or the first letter of the author cutter may not actually correspond to the current heading.

    E.g.    heading in authority file:  Alain-Fournier, 1886-1914

    class number:      PQ2611.O85
          [PQ2611 = European authors writing in French 1900-1960 with headings beginning with “F”]

    pre-AACR2 heading:  Fournier, Alain, 1886-1914

    E.g.    heading in authority file:  Guido Lavalle, Tomás, 1937-

    class number:  PQ7798.22.A87
          [PQ7798.22 = Argentine authors writing 1961- with headings beginning with “L”]

    pre-AACR2 heading: Lavalle, Tomás Guido, 1937-


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    notes, 11/92; revised draft 22 July 1994, 29 April 1996, 29 February 2000, 5 August 2003, 3 April 2008

    HTML document last reviewed:  14 July 2010