Over the centuries, thousands upon thousands of titles have been published to honor the lives of distinguished individuals. Unlike biographies, which (ideally) seek to capture the arc of an individual's life as fully and objectively as possible, titles that seek to honor such lives often are unabashedly hagiographic--i.e., they seek to recall the honoree at his or her best. These books usually feature the reminiscences and remembrances of families, friends and associates. If more formal (i.e., if they are penned by professional colleagues and associates), they frequently are termed memorials. Most are published after the death of the honored individual. It is rare that such tributes are composed while an honoree is still alive, though such tributes are not unknown.
There are, however, books that are deliberately published to honor individuals while they are still alive. And while these books, like those noted above, sometimes contain remembrances of and reminiscences about an honoree, that is not their chief attribute. Their chief attribute is original research published in honor of the dedicatee. These books are collectively known as festschriften.
There is no ready English-language equivalent for what is meant by this German word (the singular form of which is festschrift), though "homage volume" is sometimes proffered as an approximate translation. English-language volumes often carry the title Essays Presented to... or Essays in Honor of.... Whatever the title, the book usually features a collection of essays penned to honor a teacher, mentor or professional colleague, issued on the occasion of the honoree's having reached a particular milestone (his or her 65th birthday, for example).
Festschriften are most commonly encountered in academia, where it is considered a great honor to be asked to contribute to such a title, and an even greater honor to be asked to edit the volume. The essays collected therein usually relate in some way to the honoree's own contributions to a specific field of scholarly study, though especially prominent academics (who have, perhaps, made significant contributions to more than one discipline) frequently are honored with multiple festschriften by several different groups of students and colleagues. (The distinguished Indian economist Jagdish Bhagwati, to cite but one example, has to date been honored with a half-dozen fetschriften.)
Because festschriften often contain important original research, they sometimes are avidly sought by folks collecting books in specific subject areas--classics, for example, as well as medicine and a significant number of the hard sciences. Interestingly, few booksellers seem to issue catalogs specific to these types of books, though a recent catalog by Dan Wyman represents an important exception....
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