For Beginners Book Series

The ''Introducing...'' series is a book series of graphic guides covering key thinkers and topics in philosophy, psychology and science, and many others in politics, religion, cultural studies, linguistics and other areas. Books are written by an expert in the field and illustrated, comic-book style, by a leading graphic artist.

History

The ''Introducing...'' series, like the ''For Beginners'' series, has its origins in two Spanish-language books, ''Cuba para principiantes'' (1960) and ''Marx para principiantes'' (1972) by the Mexican political cartoonist and writer Rius, pocket books which put their content over in a humorous comic book way but with a serious underlying purpose. An English-language version of the first book was published in 1970 by Leviathan Press of San Francisco and Pathfinder Press of New York, to no particularly great impact. However, when Richard Appignanesi edited the first English edition of ''Marx for Beginners'' (1976) for the London-based Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, of which he was a co-founding member with Glenn Thompson and others, it was soon clear that the collective had a hit on their hands. With a successful format identified, further "''... for Beginners''" titles soon began to appear. The line's most enduring titles, all published during this period, were ''Marx for Beginners'' (1976), ''Freud for Beginners'' (1979), '' Einstein for Beginners'' (1979), and '' Darwin for Beginners'' (1982).MacDonald, H. (2003)
"Pantheon re-offers 'for beginners' series,"
''Publishers Weekly'', 250(51), 26. In the early 1980s schism arose over questions of control after some members of the cooperative sold U.S. rights to part of the ''For Beginners'' series to Pantheon Books and the Cooperative officially disbanded in 1984.

In 1992, Richard Appignanesi, who had been the first editor in London for the series and had also written several of the titles, co-created the new London-based publisher Icon Books, under whose imprint he republished several of the ''For Beginner'' titles and continued to publish and expand a new version of the series. Meanwhile, Glenn Thompson, who, since 1987, had continued the ''For Beginners'' through his New York-based Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc., also established the London-based Writers and Readers Limited"Writers and Readers Limited,"
DueDil.com Accessed Jan. 12, 2015. in 1992, to protect his own continuation of the series. These two publishers continued their series in several cases commissioning new authors to create alternate books to those being published by the other, leading to a number of examples where the two series were publishing two different books under the same title. The situation was eventually resolved in 1999 by the Icon series being rebranded as the ''Introducing...'' series, with titles starting with that word instead of ending "For Beginners".

Beginning in 2008, Icon's new titles and reissues played down the "Introducing..." to the level of a series name, and the titles were instead prominently subtitled "A Graphic Guide." In 2011, a second "Introducing..." series was launched with the subtitle "Practical Guides" focusing on topics within business, psychology and counselling.

Reception

Science writer Brian Clegg, author of ''Introducing Infinity'' (2012) in the series, states that, "It is almost impossible to rate these relentlessly hip books - they are pure marmite," as the series, "puts across the message in a style that owes as much to Terry Gilliam and pop art as it does to popular science."

List of titles

Graphic Guides

The following ''Graphic Guides'' titles have been published or republished by Icon Books since 1992.

Practical Guides

The following ''Practical Guides'' titles have been published by Icon Books since 2011.

See also

* For Beginners, LLC

References

{{Reflist

External links

For Beginners Books

Introducing Books

Icon Books
- Publishers of the Introducing Series

Lists of books
Series of non-fiction books
Icon Books books