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This page documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
This is a naming conventions guideline for the naming of Wikipedia articles about books, which includes printed books and e-books.
Contents |
Scope and definitions
Manuscripts
Although, for example, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is at the same time a manuscript and a book, for such items it is the "manuscript names" naming conventions guideline that deals with article naming.
By contrast Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry, published in 1984, ISBN 3-85672-025-1, a two volume facsimile + commentaries edition of the "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry" manuscript, is a book in the meaning of the present guideline.
Some examples from Antiquity clarifying the difference between books and manuscripts (in these examples the "manuscripts" are carved in stone):
- The Decree of Memphis is a text (a "book" in the context of this guideline), of which the Rosetta Stone is one of the manuscripts;
- The Res Gestae Divi Augusti is a book, of which the larger part of the text was recovered via several temple inscriptions in Latin and Greek.
Ancient use of the term "book"
From antiquity to the early modern age it was not uncommon to divide a single writing in separate "books", where a more modern author would call such subdivisions "parts" or even "chapters", for example Caesar's De Bello Gallico contains eight "books", somewhat of "chapter" length when comparing to more modern writings.
For the use of this guideline, "book" stands for the entire work, and not for subparts that have no other original title than "Book <number>".
Series
Sometimes books are collected into a larger entity, for example a "trilogy", or another type of series. Whether Wikipedia treats the individual books on separate pages, or the whole collection of such serialized books on a single page, depends from case to case. In general, however, the "series" page is created first, spinning off pages on individual books only if necessary.
Examples: Oresteia - The Forsyte Saga - Les Rougon-Macquart - In Search of Lost Time - ...For Dummies - Aubrey–Maturin series
Comics
See the "comics" Naming Conventions guideline for comics and graphic novels.
Periodicals
This guideline does not contain specific information on how to name Wikipedia articles on periodicals (magazines, newspapers,...). In most cases naming such articles will not be problematic, nor incompatible with this guideline, except that for periodicals that have no specific English edition, the title is usually not translated (example: Pravda, not The Truth).
Examples: Reader's Digest - Nature (journal) - The Lancet - The Times - The New York Times - Acta Diurna - Vogue (magazine) - Spirou (magazine)
Poems and lyrics
Poems normally follow this present Naming conventions guideline on books, e.g. The Lady of the Lake, for the Walter Scott poem.
Articles on the text used for musical compositions (aka "lyrics", "libretto",...) are usually not separated from the articles on those musical compositions, and follow the naming conventions for such types of works, e.g.:
- La donna del lago, opera based on The Lady of the Lake - Wikipedia page name according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (operas)
- Ellens dritter Gesang, aka Schubert's "Ave Maria", based on the same poem by Walter Scott - Wikipedia page name according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (pieces of music)
...unless the text started to live a life on its own, like the L'Olimpiade libretto - which is an article about a book in the sense of this guideline.
Title translations
Should a book title, of a book originally written in a foreign language, be translated into English?
If the original language does not use the Latin alphabet, the title is normally translated. Preferably in English, example: "Οἰδίπους Τύραννος" → Oedipus the King (not "Oedipus Rex", which is the Latin translation).
However, in some cases, when a transcription or transliteration of a title originally not in Latin alphabet, is better known, and/or less ambiguous, that version of the title can be used, example: Tao Te Ching.
If the book is best known by an English title, use that version of the title.
Also books that haven't been published in English (yet) are preferably referred to by an English version of the title, if the title in the original language would not easily be recognised by the majority of English speakers, for instance (from José Saramago#Bibliography): Lucidity (a translation of the title for example used on this page in 2004), and not Ensaio sobre a Lucidez. Some time later the publication of the English translation of the book was announced [1], causing the link in the author's article to be changed to Seeing [2].
When the title version "best known in English" can't be determined
For some books it cannot be determined, not even by educated guesswork, which version of the title is the most common. For these books, try to determine which of the widely spread versions of the book in the English-speaking world was the most authoritative original (that is, the version that contributed most to the book's becoming known in the English-speaking world), and stick to the title as it appeared on that edition.
Example: Oscar Wilde's play Salomé/Salome was first written in French (title: Salomé), but the first printed edition in English, of which the translation was supervised by the author, was Salome. Notwithstanding that later English editions variously had either Salomé or Salome on the title page, the Wikipedia article is at Salome (play).
Subtitles
Usually, a Wikipedia article on a book does not include its subtitle in the Wikipedia page name. The only exception to that is short titles, for disambiguation purposes, examples:
- Orlando: A Biography, (not Orlando (novel), nor Orlando (book), both of which are redirects; Orlando is a disambiguation page. However avoid the subtitle "A Novel" as every modern novel appears to add this as a subtitle)
- History of Western Philosophy (Russell), not A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
- Social Contract (Rousseau), not The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right
- On the Origin of Species, not On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, nor On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (see example →)
Except for the extremely long ones, best to provide redirects from the title including the subtitle. Standard separator for the title and the subtitle (that is: in the case both taken together don't compose a continuing phrase) in the page name is ":" followed by a space, like in the first example above.
Standard disambiguation
To disambiguate, add the type of literary work in parentheses, such as "(novel)", "(novella)", "(short story)", "(dialogue)", "(essay)", "(play)", etc. If none of these specific qualifiers applies, also "(book)" can be used. Note however that this qualifier would usually be perceived as indicating a non-fiction type of writing.
If further disambiguation is needed, add the author's surname in parentheses: "(Orwell novel)", "(Asimov short story)", etc. In this case it is not advised to leave out the qualifier of which type of book it is, unless completely redundant, which may happen for some non-fiction books like the Russell and Rousseau examples in the previous section, or Histories (Herodotus)/Histories (Tacitus).
Capitalization
Book titles, like names of other works, are exempt from "lowercase second and subsequent words".
This is an additional feature that can help in disambiguation, for instance, for distinguishing articles on a known phrase, and a book that has that phrase as title, examples:
- Pearls before swine refers to a Bible quote; Pearls Before Swine can refer to (among other things) a comic strip and a novel.
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play, Who's afraid of the big bad wolf is a line from a children's rhyme.
Precision
Be aware that parenthetical qualifiers can introduce Point of View (POV) in a Wikipedia page name. For instance Orlando (novel) or Orlando (biography), would add POV, to Orlando: A Biography, where the author attempted (deliberately, as explained by herself) to create a fiction/non-fiction cross-over genre.
When using the title *as written by the author*, and nothing else, possible implications of POV are the author's (= external source) and not Wikipedia's. Trying to "purge" Wikipedia page names of an external author's intentions, would be creation of a new POV; Wikipedia's Neutral point of view (NPOV) policy includes not to tamper with what authors of notable works want to express with the title they give to their work (see also Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Article names). If there are opposing views about the book title, these are better explained in the article text and not crammed in the Wikipedia page name.
Hence "(book)" or a similar qualifier is not used in article names, unless where needed for disambiguation from *existing* Wikipedia pages. Examples:
- Stupid White Men, not Stupid White Men (book)
- Darwin's Dangerous Idea, not Darwin's Dangerous Idea (book)
- The Divine Comedy, not The Divine Comedy (poem)
See also
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles) - info on how to represent books in article text
- Wikipedia:Citing sources - a difference between page names of book articles and books cited as reference, is that in the latter case conventionally the subtitle is always mentioned.
- Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)#Titles of works - examples on whether or not the page name on a book article should start with a definite or indefinite article.
