For years I've owned this book, The Traces of Thomas Hariot by the poet Muriel Rukeyser. Why have I never read it? A person could do a lot worse than reading a book by Muriel Rukeyser. Furthermore, I am interested in Thomas Hariot, who wouldn't be? Pal of Sir Walter Raleigh, accused of heresy with another pal, Christopher Marlowe, your basic brilliant, fascinating, and mysterious Renaissance figure. But I didn't buy the book because of its subject, I bought it because of the book itself. The "author photo" which covers the entire back of the dustjacket is a close-up image of an eye, presumably Muriel Rukeyser's eye, and it was taken by renowned photographer Berenice Abbott, who bummed around Paris in the 20's assisting Man Ray and rescuing Atget's work from oblivion and so on and so forth, ho hum. This is the best author photo ever taken, hands down. Furthermore, inside the book is a laid-in errata slip. This book was printed in 1971 and the tiny paper rectangle is still inside; when I saw it I knew I had to buy the book, to make sure the slip didn't slip out, to protect the thirty-year marriage of book and errata slip. The era of the errata slip is obviously long gone, it seems almost quaint. This particular errata slip contains the following statement: "The portrait here mistakenly called 'Dorothy Devereaux' was sent from England to the publishers when the lost illustrations were replaced. It is not a portrait of Dorothy Devereaux and should not appear in the book." When you look at the image plates in the middle of the book, there is indeed a portrait painting of a woman bearing the caption 'Dorothy Devereaux,' but if it's not her then who is it? What lost illustrations? Why were they lost?

The blurb on the inside flap says: "If Thomas Hariot did not exist, we would have to invent him: a man who...appears to have passed through and perished, leaving but traces and mentions of his greatness behind, in the lives of other men and other histories." Why is it more interesting for me to think about the traces of Muriel Rukeyser and Berenice Abbott and Dorothy Devereaux? Perhaps I'm reluctant to read the book because it's possibly way more intriguing simply to think about it, and to think about that errata slip.