The textual provenance of J.M. Coetzee’s ninth novel Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons (2003) is of unusual traceability. Of the eight “lessons” and postscript which make up the novel, seven of the individual sections had previously appeared in print from 1997-2002. By deduction only “Lesson 7: Eros” and “Lesson 8: At the Gate” are identifiable as appearing for the first time upon the publication of Elizabeth Costello in 2003. A number of these had also emerged earlier as lectures given by Coetzee. (For a detailed history of the augmentation of these lectures into printed short stories and the collation of these stories into chapters for Elizabeth Costello see Attridge [192-196].) Attridge …
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Citation: Hyde, Franklyn. "Elizabeth Costello". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 May 2010 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13147, accessed 22 November 2024.]