Soviet scholars: What's this unexplained footnote in my book?

November 4, 2006 5:19 PM

Any Soviet scholars out there? In my copy of Nadezda Mandelstam's incredible and beautiful memoir, Hope Against Hope, the 1999 paperback edition by Harvill Press, there is an unexplained footnote: "H.A.H.-" followed by a capital letter. Does this occur in other editions? Does anyone know what it's about? At first I imagined it was a coded message, but when I realized that they occurred regularly and that the letters ascended (though some letters seem to be skipped, like from H.A.H.-I to H.A.H.-K) that maybe it was a way of demarcing sections of smuggled samizdat. Or maybe it's something more mundane?
posted by bukharin to writing & language (3 comments total)

If they regularly occur every 12 pages or so they may be collation marks, (I forget the correct term) collation formula, gathering marks, that assist the binder in placing the gathering of leaves of pages in the correct order. They are rarely used anymore (esp. in paperbacks) and it's unusual to come across them in in contemporary books.
posted by anticlock at 5:35 PM on November 4, 2006

Yeah, H.A.H stands for "Hope Against Hope," and each letter represents a bound section.
posted by nasreddin at 5:42 PM on November 4, 2006

The bound section is called a signature, if you feel like learning more about them. But that's definitely what it is.
posted by dame at 6:06 PM on November 4, 2006