Edition

Edition (pronounced ih-dish-uhn)

(1) One of a series of printings of the same publication, each issued at a different time and differing from another by alterations, additions etc (historically sometimes referred to as impressions).

(2) The format in which a work is published (single volume edition, abridged edition, leather-bound edition, French language edition etc).

(3) In newspaper production, a form of differentiation between different versions of the “same” issue (late edition, city edition etc) and used in a similar manner in radio & television broadcasting.

(4) In book collecting, as “first edition”, a copy of a book from its first release or print run.

(5) The whole number of impressions or copies of a book, newspaper etc, printed from one set of type at one time.

(6) A version of anything (physical and not), often (sometimes misleadingly) in forms such as “limited edition”, “special edition” etc).

1545–1555: From the French édition, from the Middle French, from the Latin ēditiōn- (publication), the stem of ēditiō (a bringing forth, publishing), the construct being ēdit, the past participle of ēdere (to give out; bring forth, produce) + -iōn (the suffix appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process).  When the word entered English in the sense of “version, translation, a form of a literary work” (and later “act of publishing”) the dominant linguistic influence was probably the Latin editionem (a bringing forth, producing (although in specialized use it also carried the meaning “a statement, an account rendered”, from the past-participle stem of ēdere, the construct being e(x) (in the sense of “out”) + -dere, a combining form of dare (to give), from the primitive Indo-European root do- (to give).  Edition is a noun; the noun plural is editions.

More Issues Than Vogue sweatshirt from Impressions.

In publishing and (sometimes vaguely) related fields, the terms “issue”, “edition” and “version” have come to be used so loosely that they sometimes function interchangeably but within the publishing industry, there are conventions of use: Issue traditionally was used to refer to a specific release of a recurring publication (magazine, journal, newspaper etc) and tended to be tied to the release sequence (“October 2024 Issue”, “Fall 2024 Issue”, “Issue No. 215” etc).  Issue can however be used also as “re-issue” which refers usually to a “re-print” of a previous edition although it’s not uncommon for blurbs like “re-issued with new foreword” or “re-issued in large print” to appear, the implication being the substantive content remains the same.  Edition was used of a particular form or version of a publication that might differ from previous ones in significant ways which might include text corrections, foreign language translations, or updates, thus descriptions like “German Language Edition”, “Second Edition” or “Abridged Edition.  Some editions (especially those which appear in an irregular sequence) actually give in their title some hint of the nature of what distinguishes them from what came before such as the convention adopted by the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic for their Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  What the APA does is change the number if a DSM is regarded as a “new edition” but retain the number with an appended “R” (revised) or “TR” (text revision) if it’s an “updated edition”.  Thus has appeared the DSM-III-R (1987), the DSM-IV-TR (2000) and the DSM-5-TR (2022).  There’s some overlap in use for version and this perhaps reflects the influence of technology because it tends to be used of a specific form or variant of a publication such as language (eg Spanish version), format (eg audio version) or materials used in the construction (eg e-book version) rather than an implication of a chronological or iterative update (which in publishing tends to be called an “edition”.  In that the industry differs from IT where version numbers are almost always sequential although the convention widely used in the 1980s in which something like “version 2.4.3” could be interpreted as 2=major release, 4=update and 3= bug fix has long fallen into disuse.

Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version (RSV), 1952 limited edition, first printing by Thomas Nelson & Sons, brown full leather binding with inlaid gold lettering, silk end paper and green cardboard slip case, custom bound by the Chicago Bible Society.  US$750 from Abe Books.

There are also special uses which assume a life of their own, notably the Revised Standard Version (RSV), an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the US.  The RSV was a revision of the American Standard Version (ASV, 1901) and was published to render the text into the modern English which readily would be understood by a contemporary reader of modest education.  The object was not to change the meaning of the text but to preserve it and paradoxically this required editing the classic verses written by William Tyndale (circa 1494–1536) or in the King James Version (KJV, 1611) because the over hundreds of years the language had evolved and the much of what was in the original needed to be interpreted for a general audience and the controversy of clerical gatekeepers between God and his people had for centuries been a thing.  The RSV however has not been the last words and those who track novel initializms will have been delighted by the appearance of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV, released in 1989 by the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), published in 2021.  Students of such things aren’t expecting the next update for at least a decade but finding a name might prove more of a challenge than editing the Old Testament’s Book of Leviticus for a modern audience although those who have worked in biblical forks have found alpha-numeric solutions such as RSV-2CE (Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (2006))

First Edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, "Copy No 1", held in the National Library of Ireland.  It contains in Joyce's hand an inscription to the English political activist Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876–1961) who was for decades his patron.

A first edition of Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce (1882–1941) in 2009 sold on the opening day of an antiquarian book fair London for Stg£275,000, at the time a record for a twentieth century first edition.  Ulysses is regarded in the industry as the most collectable modern novel and the first editions, printed on hand-made Dutch fine-paper, are well-catalogued and this was number 45 of the first edition print run (all signed by the author) of 100, one of four not previously accounted for.  It had been sold originally by the Manhattan’s obviously subversive Sunwise Turn bookshop (Ulysses at the times banned in the US) and remained in the possession of the same family, stored in its original box and thus not exposed to light, accounting for the preservation of the construction.  Proving that dealers in literary circles can gush with the finest used car salesmen, the dealer who arranged the sale explained: “The color is amazing – this lovely Aegean Sea, Greek flag blue which would normally have darkened into a more dirty blue but because it has been in a box it is a complete thing of beauty.”  The almost pristine condition was a product also of its history of use, an inspection suggesting it was seemingly unread except for the well-thumbed final chapter where the most salacious passages can be found.  The existence of unread copies of well-known books is not unusual and those notorious for sitting neglected on the bookshelf include “challenging” texts such as A Theory of Justice (1971) by John Rawls (1921–2002), A Brief History of Time (1988) by Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) and Joyce’s own, bafflingly difficult Finnegans Wake (1939).  Intriguingly, the antiquarian book business also includes the category “pre-first edition” (any limited run copy of a book printed before the “first edition” is published).  The apparent oxymoron is explained by “first edition” being an industry definition rather than a literal description; pre-first editions thus analogous with “pre-production” or “final prototype” cars which (if they’ve survive the crusher which claims most) can be prized by collectors.

Among special editions there are, inter alia, “Collector's Editions”, “Anniversary Editions” and even, in one instance, the “So Fetch Edition”.

In commerce, “special editions” have become notable income generators for content providers and the movie business has embraced the concept with editions such as “the making of”, “bloopers & out-takes”, “director’s cut” and others and the idea isn’t new.  Led Zeppelin's eighth studio album (In Through the Out Door (1979)) originally was sold with an outer sleeve of plain brown paper, stamped with nothing more than the while the cardboard sleeve proper within was released with six different versions of the artwork.  Buyers would thus not know which sleeve they were selecting.  There’s nothing to suggest it was anything but a gimmick and neither the band nor the record company were expecting many to keep buying copies in the plain brown wrapped until they’d scored all six covers but there were press reports at the time of "Led Heads" doing exactly that.  The industry took note.

Taylor Swift's The Anthology, one of 34 available editions of The Tortured Poets Department.

The attraction of releasing multiple versions of essentially the same product with variations restricted to some added content or detail differences in the packaging is that the additional costs in production and distribution are marginal yet there’s sometimes it’s possible to charge a premium for the “non-standard editions”.  The practice had for decades been quite a thing with car manufacturers but the music business came also to like the idea because, unlike with the cars where customers tended to buy one at a time, obsessive fans of musicians might be persuaded they needed several copies of what was essentially the same thing.  Leftist UK student site The Tab noted few music fans were as obsessive as Taylor Swift’s (b 1989) Swifties and, more significantly, they were also impressively numerous and thus an irresistible catchment of disposable income.  What The TAB noted was the almost simultaneous release of a remarkable (and apparently unprecedented) of 34 versions of Ms Swift’s eleventh album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024), something which as well as generating revenue has the statistical benefit of afforcing her presence on the charts, every sale counting as a 1.0.  Some were technologically deterministic in than four were released as audio cassettes and nine were exclusively digital bit most were essentially the same product except for the inclusion of a bonus track and there were some available only through the retailer Target.  The most obsessive Swifties obviously could buy all 34 editions but for those which want just an exhaustive collection of the music, it appeared all was included on the accurately named The Anthology so there was that.  One day, all 34, still (where appropriate) unopened in their original packaging will appear begin to appear on auction sites.  The approach attracted some adverse comment (which the Swifties doubtless ignored) and probably confirmed in the mind of JD Vance (b 1984; US senator (Republican-Ohio) since 2023) that childless cat ladies are evil.

All editions: The Tab’s The Tortured Poets Department discography:

1. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Manuscript
2. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Albatross
3. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Bolter
4. Collector’s Edition Deluxe with The Black Dog
5. Standard album and The Manuscript
6. Standard and The Manuscript (signed)
7. Standard and But Daddy I Love Him (Acoustic)
8. Standard and Guilty As Sin? (Acoustic)
9. Standard and Down Bad (Acoustic)
10. Standard and Fortnight (Acoustic)
11. Standard and Fresh Out The Slammer (Acoustic)
12. Target exclusive with The Albatross
13. Target exclusive with The Bolter
14. Target exclusive with The Black Dog
15. Target exclusive vinyl
16. The Manuscript vinyl (pressing one)
17. The Manuscript vinyl (pressing two)
18. The Albatross vinyl
19. The Bolter vinyl
20. The Black Dog vinyl
21. The Manuscript vinyl
22. The Anthology
23. Standard and The Black Dog ‘voice memo’
24. Standard album and Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me voice memo
25. Standard album and Cassandra voice memo
26. Standard album (digital)
27. Standard album and Daddy I Love Him (Acoustic)
28. Standard album and loml (live from Paris)
29. Standard album and My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys (live from Paris)
30. Standard album and The Alchemy / Treacherous mashup (live from Paris)
31. The Manuscript cassette
32. The Bolter cassette
33. The Albatross cassette
34. The Black Dog cassette

1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, Lipstick edition.  The shade of red appears to be close to Dior's lipstick #744 (Party Red).

The car manufacturers have produced at least hundreds of “special editions”, a concept to which they kept returning because it was lucrative, the things usually profitable to an extent exceeding greatly the nominal sum of their parts.  Quite how many have existed over the years is difficult to estimate because, in addition to the well-documented examples from manufacturers which were sold nationally or even globally, some were offered only briefly or regionally and barely advertised.  Additionally, dealers or sometimes an agglomeration of them would also conjure up their own "special editions" so the total of such things is probably in the thousands.  Sometimes, fashion houses were paid to lend their name, AMC teaming with Pierre Cardin, Levi Strauss (Volkswagen also had a denim-trimmed Beetle though without a specific brand attribution) & Oleg Cassini while the Lincoln Continental at times was offered with themes by Emilio Pucci, Cartier, Bill Blass and de Givenchy although the most memorable were the reputed 500 “Lipstick editions”, a study in red & white, quite a sight given the expanse of sheet metal and leather.

1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE (left), 1972 Chrysler VH Valiant Charger 770SE E55 (centre left), 1976 Holden HX LE (centre right) and 2002 Mazda Miata Special Edition (MX-5 in some markets) (right).

In most of the “special” editions, offered over the decades, it was only in the advertising or press kits that terms like “special edition” or “limited edition” appeared.  Sometimes though, such physical badges did appear on the vehicles. In the US, on the 1969 Dodge Chargers with the SE option, the badge included both “SE” & “Special Edition” while in Australia, only “SE” appeared on the 1972 Chrysler VH Valiant Charger 770SE E55 (one of the industry’s longer model names) although the marketing material called it a “Special Edition”, a usage borrowed from the parent corporation in the US and even the badge used was the same part as that which had been stuck on the 1970 Dodge Challenger SE.  Holden’s frankly cynical (but most profitable) 1976 LE spelled out “Limited Edition” under a “LE” (in a larger font) while Mazda used only the full term for the Miata (MX-5) Special Edition models.

Limited Edition, less limited profit: The Holden LE

1976 HX Holden LE

By the mid 1970s, the market had come to prefer the cheaper, smaller and easier to use cassette tapes which meant warehouses were soon full of the once desirable 8-track players and buyers were scarce.  In Australia, GMH (General Motor Holden) by 1975 had nearly a thousand in the inventory which also bulged with 600-odd Monaro body-shells, neither of which were attracting customers; fashions change and both had become unfashionable.  Fortunately, GMH was well-acquainted with the concept of the "parts-bin special edition" whereby old, unsaleable items are bundled together and sold at what appears a discount, based for advertising purposes on a book-value retail price there’s no longer any chance of realizing.  Thus created was the high-priced, limited edition LE (which stood for "Limited Edition", the Monaro name appearing nowhere although all seem still to use the name), in metallic crimson with gold pin striping, golf "honeycomb" aluminium wheels, fake (plastic) burl walnut trim and crushed velour (polyester) upholstery; in the 1970s, this was tasteful.  Not designed for the purpose, the eight-track cartridge player crudely was bolted to the console but five-hundred and eighty LEs were made, GMH pleasantly surprised at how quickly they sold with no need to resort to discounting.  When new, they listed at Aus$11,500, a pleasingly profitable premium of some 35% above the unwanted vehicle on which it was based; these days, examples are advertised for sale for (Aus$) six-figure sums and anyone who now buys a LE does so for reasons other than specific-performance.  Although of compact size (in US terms) and fitted with a 308 cubic inch (5.0 litre) V8, it could achieve barely 110 mph (175 km/h), acceleration was lethargic by earlier and (much) later standards yet fuel consumption was high; slow and thirsty the price to be paid for the early implementations of the emission control plumbing bolted to engines designed during more toxic times.      

1971 Holden HQ Monaro LS 350

The overwrought and bling-laden Holden HX typified the tendency during the 1970s and of US manufacturers and their colonial off-shoots to take a fundamentally elegant design and, with a heavy-handed re-style, distort it into something ugly.  A preview of the later “malaise era” (so named in the US for many reasons), it was rare for a facelift to improve the original.  The 1971 HQ Holden was admired for an austerity of line and fine detailing; what followed over three subsequent generations lacked that restraint.  The HX LE was one of a number of "special" and "limited" editions offered during the era and it remains one of the few remembered.

Reagent

Reagent (pronounced ree-ey-juhnt)

In chemistry, a substance that produces a chemical reaction, used in analysis and synthesis.

1785: A compound word, the construct being re(act)- + agent.  The prefix re- is from the Middle English re-, from the Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wret-, a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  Agent is from the Latin agēns, present active participle of agere (to drive, lead, conduct, manage, perform, do) from the Proto-Italic agō, from primitive Indo-European hzéǵeti.  It was cognate with the Old Irish aigid, the Ancient Greek ἄγω (ágō) (I lead), the Old Norse aka (move, drive), the Avestan azaiti and the Sanskrit अजति (ájati) (to drive, propel, cast).

The difference between a catalyst and a reagent is that catalysts are not consumed during the chemical reaction, whereas reagents may be.  A catalyst is a substance which can increase the reaction rate of a particular chemical reaction, while a reagent is a substance used in chemical analysis or to induce another chemical reaction.

Novichok

A Novichok (Russian: новичо́к (novičók) (newcomer)) agent is one of a number of chemical weapons developed by the state chemical research institute (GosNIIOKhT) in the Soviet Union (USSR) and Russia between 1971-1993.  Said to be the deadliest nerve agent ever created, Novichok was designed in a way that evaded the restrictions on chemical weapons imposed by treaties to which the USSR was a signatory.  Novichok agents have become well-known because they’ve been used to poison several opponents of the Russian government, most notably Sergei Skripal (b 1951; a former officer in the Russian military agent of UK intelligence) and his daughter, Yulia Skripal (b 1985) who were poisoned in the city of Salisbury, UK.  The Kremlin denied complicity and accused the UK government of whipping-up anti-Russian hysteria.

The design requirements for Novichok included it being undetectable using standard equipment, being able to penetrate personal protective equipment, being easier to handle in its transportable form and able to circumvent the various chemical weapons treaties the USSR had signed.  The use of reagents made many of these objectives possible.  As a binary weapon, in which precursors are mixed to produce the nerve agent immediately prior use, handling is easier because, in un-mixed form, the reagents are less hazardous and thus simpler to store and transport.  The reagents are also chemically less unstable and have a long shelf life although western analysts note at least one liquid form of Novichok is sufficiently stable to be able to remain deadly for decades if stored in a controlled environment.

In July 2018, a UK distillery was forced to apologize after releasing a 75% abv vodka named Novichok, days after a woman and her partner were poisoned with the same nerve agent that almost killed Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury earlier in the year.  Bristol Dry Gin’s limited edition Novichok vodka quickly sold out and the company has made clear there are no plans for a second batch.  Amesbury woman Dawn Sturgess (b 1974), who lived some eight miles (13 km) north of Salisbury, fell ill on 30 June 2018, dying within days after being exposed to what experts said must have been a sizable dose of the Novichok substance.  Her partner, Charlie Rowley (b 1973), was for some time critically ill but recovered.

Just before Ms Sturgess’ death, Bristol Dry Gin posted to its Facebook page an image of its new “limited edition” Novichok vodka, along with a promotional blurb: "Our new limited edition vodka is out! Set at 75%, this smooth drinking spirit is no laughing matter."  "Available as a 35cl bottle, perfect for manbags and gym bottles, or as a pack of three 5cl minis, a great solution to body cavity searches. Get em from our web store or distillery.”  Not so much the product as the timing of the release attracted criticism, many finding it in “poor taste” and the distillery in its statement of apology agreed, admitting the timing “may have lacked sensitivity” and was named and launched only after the Skripals had recovered.  “It was intended to lighten the mood and ease tensions, not to cause offence, and reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. We sincerely apologize if any offence was caused, especially to the families of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, and understand the timing of the release of this product may have lacked sensitivity.  The Novichok Edition is a limited edition, which sold out within a hours of being released, and we have no plans to produce any more.”

Capitalism in Russia proved a little more robust, a Russian entrepreneur capitalizing on the poisoning in the UK of Sergei & Yulia Skripala by releasing the новичо́к (novičók or Novichok) brand of cooking oil.  Ulyanovsk-based farmer Alexei Yakushev explained he was inspired to choose the name for his new brand of sunflower oil after watching a news report of the events in Salisbury.  “I regularly watch the news” Mr Yakushev informed an interviewer and as the product wasn’t available in store, he decided to produce and bring it to market himself.

Said to be the ideal oil for sukhariki (oven-toasted stale bread strips), the Novichok oil was marketed under the slogan “products for a long life” and, in a nice touch, the label included the famous insignia of the KGB.  On Mr Yakushev’s webpage, to counter Western propaganda, he included in the “About us” section the line “We don’t hide money offshore,” in rhyme.

Vogue

Vogue (pronounced vohg)

(1) Something in fashion at a particular time or in a particular place.

(2) An expression of popular currency, acceptance, or favor.

(3) A highly stylized modern dance that evolved out of the Harlem ballroom scene in the 1960s, the name influenced by the fashion magazine; one who practiced the dance was a voguer who was voguing.

(4) In Polari, a cigarette or to light a cigarette (often in the expression “vogue me up”).

1565–1575: From the Middle English vogue (height of popularity or accepted fashion), from the Middle French vogue (fashion, success (literally, “wave or course of success”)), from the Old French vogue (a rowing), from voguer (to row, sway, set sail), from the Old Saxon wegan (to move) & wogōn (to sway, rock), a variant of wagōn (to float, fluctuate), from the Proto-Germanic wagōną (to sway, fluctuate) and the Proto-Germanic wēgaz (water in motion), wagōną (to sway, fluctuate), wēgaz (water in motion) & weganą (to move, carry, weigh), from the primitive Indo-European weǵh- (to move, go, transport (and an influence on the English way).  The forms were akin to the Old Saxon wegan (to move), the Old High German wegan (to move), the Old English wegan (to move, carry, weigh), the Old Norse vaga (to sway, fluctuate), the Old English wagian (to sway, totter), the Proto-West Germanic wagōn, the German Woge (wave) and the Swedish våg.  A parallel development the Germanic forms was the Spanish boga (rowing) and the Old Italian voga (a rowing), from vogare (to row, sail), of unknown origin and the Italianate forms were probably some influence on the development of the verb.  Vogue & voguer are nouns (voguette an informal noun), voguing is a noun and adjective, vogued is a verb and vogueing & voguish are adjectives; the noun plural is vogues.

All etymologists seem to concur the modern meaning is from the notion of being "borne along on the waves of fashion" and colloquially the generalized sense of "fashion, reputation" is probably from the same Germanic source.  The phrase “in vogue” (having a prominent place in popular fashion) was recorded as long ago as 1643.  The fashion magazine (now owned by Condé Nast) began publication in 1892 and the young devotees of its advice are voguettes.  In linguistics, vogue words are those words & phrases which become suddenly (although not always neologisms) popular and fade from use or becoming clichéd or hackneyed forms (wardrobe malfunction; awesome; problematic; at this point in time; acid test; in this space; parameters; paradigm et al).  Because it’s so nuanced, vogue has no universal synonym but words which tend to the same meaning (and can in some circumstances be synonymous) include latest, mod, now, rage, chic, craze, currency, custom, fad, favor, mode, popularity, practice, prevalence, style, stylishness, thing, trend & usage.

Lindsay Lohan cover, Vogue (Spanish edition), August 2009.

In Cornwall, the hamlet of Vogue in the parish of St Day gained its name from the Medieval Cornish vogue word for a medieval smelting furnace (blowing house); producing much smoke, vogue was also a word used to mean “fog or mist”.  Clearly better acquainted with law than geography, in early 2022 counsel for Condé Nast sent a cease and desist letter to the inn-keeper of the village’s The Star Inn at Vogue pub, demanding the place change its name to avoid any public perception of a connection between the two businesses.  The pub’s owners declined the request and Condé Nast subsequently apologized, citing insufficient investigation by their staff.

1981 Range Rover In Vogue from the first run with the standard stylized steel wheels (left) and a later 1981 In Vogue with the three-spoke aluminum units.

Much of the 1970s was spent in what to many felt like a recession, even if there were only some periods in some places during which the technical definition was fulfilled and the novel phenomenon of stagflation did disguise some of the effects.  Less affected than most (of course) were the rich who had discovered a new status-symbol, the Range Rover which, introduced in 1970 had essentially created the luxury four-wheel-drive (4WD) segment although the interior of the original was very basic, the car’s reputation based on the excellence of the engineering.  So good was the Range Rover, both on and off-road that owners, used to being cosseted in leather and walnut, wanted something closer to that to which they were accustomed and dealers received enquiries about an up-market version.

Lindsay Lohan at the opening of the Ninety years of Vogue covers exhibition, Crillon Hotel, Paris, 2009.

That had been Rover’s original intention.  The plan had been to release a basic version powered by four cylinder engines and a luxury edition with a V8 but by 1970 time and development funds had run out so the car was released with the V8 power-train and an interior so utilitarian it could be hosed out, something which was touted as a competitive advantage although it’s doubtful it was a feature many owners chose to exploit.  However, if the rich were riding out the decade well, British Leyland (which owned Rover) was not and it lacked the resources to devote to the project.  Others took advantage of what proved a profitable niche and the rich could choose from a variety of limited-production and bespoke offerings including long-wheelbase models, four-door conversions, six wheelers and even open-topped versions from a variety of coach-builders such as Wood & Pickett and low-volume manufacturers like Switzerland’s Monteverdi which anticipated the factory by a number of years with their four-door coachwork.

Rendez-vous à Biarritz, Vogue magazine, March 1981.

However, British Leyland was soon subject to one of the many re-organizations which would seek (without success) to make it a healthy corporation and one consequence was increased autonomy for the division making Range Rovers.  No longer forced to subsidize less profitable arms of the business, attention was turned to the matter of a luxury model, demand for which clearly existed.  To test market reaction, in late 1980, the factory collaborated with Wood & Pickett to design a specially-equipped two-door model as a proof-of-concept exercise to gauge market reaction.  The prototype (HAC 414W) was lent to Vogue magazine, a crafty choice given the demographic profile of the readership and the by then well-known extent of women’s own purchasing power and influence on that of their husbands.  Vogue took the prototype to Biarritz to be the photographic backdrop for the images taken for the magazine’s co-promotion of the 1981 Lancôme and Jaeger fashion collections, published in an eight-page advertising spread entitled Rendez-vous à Biarritz in the March 1981 edition.  The response was remarkable and while Lancôme and Jaeger’s launch attracted polite attention, Vogue’s mailbox (which then was letters in envelopes with postage stamps) was overwhelmingly filled with enquiries about the blinged-up Range-Rover.

Vogue's Range Rover In Vogue (HAC 414W) in Biarritz, 1981, all nuts on board or otherwise attached.

Rover had expected demand to be strong and the reaction to the Vogue spread justified their decision to prepare for a production run even before publication and the Range Rover In Vogue went on sale early in 1981, the limited-edition run all replicas of the photo shoot car except for the special aluminum wheels.  The three-spoke wheels (based on the design Ford had used on the 1979 (Fox) Mustang) had actually proved a problem in Biarritz, the factory supplying the wrong lug nuts which had a tendency to fall off, meaning the staff travelling with the car had to check prior to each shoot to ensure five were present on each wheel which would appear in the picture.  Not until later in the year would the wheels be ready so the In Vogue’s went to market with the standard stylized steel units, meaning the brochures had to be pulped and reprinted with new photographs.  Quite how many were made remains unclear.  The factory said 1000 would be built, all in right hand drive (RHD) but many left hand drive (LHD) examples seem to exist and it’s thought demand from the continent was such that another batch was built although this has never been confirmed.  The In Vogue’s exclusive features were:

Light blue metallic (the model-exclusive Vogue Blue) paint with twin broad coach-lines in two-tone grey
High-compression (9.35:1) V8 engine
Transfer box with taller (0.996:1) high ratio
Air conditioning
Polished-wood door cappings
Stowage box between front seats
Map pockets on back of front seats
Fully carpeted load area
Carpeted spare wheel cover and tool kit curtain
Custom picnic hamper mounted in rear load-space
Stainless steel tailgate capping
Black centre caps for the wheels

Condé Nast would later describe the In Vogue’s custom picnic hamper as the car’s piece de resistance.  Demand for the In Vogue far exceeded supply and production runs of various volumes followed before the Vogue in 1984 became the regular production top-of-the-range model for many years (although when sold in the US it was called the Country).  For both companies, the In Vogue (and the subsequent Vogues) turned out to be the perfect symbiosis.

Vogue, January 1925, cover art by Georges Lepape.

From the start, Vogue was of course about frocks, shoes and such but its influence extended over the years to fields as diverse as interior decorating and industrial design.  The work of Georges Lepape (1887-1971) has long been strangely neglected in the history of art deco but he was a fine practitioner whose reputation probably suffered because his compositions have always been regarded as derivative or imitative which seems unfair given there are many who are more highly regarded despite being hardly original.  His cover art for Vogue’s edition of 1 January 1925 juxtaposed one of French artist Sonia Delaunay’s (1885–1979) "simultaneous" pattern dresses and a Voisin roadster decorated with an art deco motif.

One collector in 2015 was so taken with Pepape’s image that when refurbishing his 1927 Voisin C14 Lumineuse (literally “light”, an allusion to the Voisin’s greenhouse-inspired design which allowed natural light to fill the interior), he commissioned Dutch artist Bernadette Ramaekers to hand-paint a geometric triangular pattern in sympathy with that on the Vogue cover in 1925.  Ms Ramaekers toook six months to complete the project and the car is now being offered at auction.

Voisin's extraordinary visions:  1934 C27 Aérosport (left), 1934-1935 Voisin C25 Aérodynes (centre) & 1931 C20 Mylord Demi Berline (right).

There are few designers as deserving of such a tribute as French aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin (1880–1973) who made military aircraft during the First World War (1914-1918) and, under the name Avions Voisin, produced a remarkable range of automobiles between 1919-1939, encapsulating thus the whole inter-war period and much of the art deco era.  Because his designs were visually so captivating, much attention has always been devoted to his lines, curves and shapes but the underlying engineering was also interesting although some of his signature touches, like the (briefly in vogue) sleeve valve engine, proved a mirage.  Also a cul-de-sac was his straight-12 engine.  Slow-running straight-12 (there is even a straight-14 which displaces 25,340 litres (1,546,000 cubic inches) and produces 107,290 hp (80,080 kW)) engines are actually not uncommon at sea where they’re used in big container ships but on the road (apart from some slow-running engines in military vehicles), only Voisin and Packard ever attempted them, the former making two, the latter, one.  Voisin’s concept was simple enough; it was two straight-6s joined together, end-on-end, the same idea many had used to make things like V12s (2 x V6s) straight-8s (2 x straight-4s) and even V24s (2 x V12s) but the sheer length of a straight-12 in a car presented unique problems in packaging and the management of the torsional vibrations induced by the elongated crankshaft.

1934 Voisin C15 Saloit Roadster.

The length of the straight-12 meant an extraordinary amount of the vehicle’s length had to be devoted to housing just the engine and that resulted in a high number for what designers call the dash-to-axle ratio.  That was one of the many reasons the straight-12 never came into vogue and indeed was one of the factors which doomed the straight-8, a configuration which at least had some redeeming features.  Voisin must however have liked the appearance of the long hood (bonnet) because the striking C15 Saloit Roadster (which could have accommodated a straight-12) was powered by a straight-4, a sleeve valve Knight of 2500 cm³ (153 cubic inch).  The performance doubtlessly didn’t live up to the looks but so sensuous were those looks that many would forgive the lethargy.

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler SP250, wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover (left) of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959, the original's (right) color being "enhanced" in pre-production editing.  The "wide" whitewall tyres were a thing at the time, even on sports cars and were a popular option on US market Jaguar E-Types (there (unofficially) called XK-E or XKE) in the early 1960s.

More Issues Than Vogue sweatshirt from Impressions.

The Daimler SP250 was first shown to the public at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the little sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid line-up Daimler had for years offered, the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast.  Unfortunately, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their Dart proposal to Chrysler for approval and while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) do imply much the same thing but ultimately the original was preferred and Darts remained in Dodge’s lineup until 1976, for most of that time one of the corporation's best-selling and most profitable lines.  The name was revived between 2012-2016 for an unsuccessful and unlamented compact sedan.

Anxiety

Anxiety (pronounced ang-zahy-i-tee)

(1) Fear, foreboding, worry, disquiet, distress, uneasiness or tension caused by apprehension of possible future misfortune, danger etc, often to a degree that normal physical and psychological functioning is disrupted (can occur without an identifiable cause in which case the patient may be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder).

(2) Earnest but tense desire; eagerness; an uneasy or distressing desire for someone or something.

(3) In psychiatry, a state of intense apprehension or worry often accompanied by physical symptoms such as shaking, intense feelings in the gut etc, common in mental illness or after a distressing experience; a generalised state of apprehension and psychic tension occurring in some forms of mental disorder.

1515–1525: From the Middle English anxumnesse (apprehension caused by danger, misfortune, or error, uneasiness of mind respecting some uncertainty, a restless dread of some evil), from the Old English angsumnes, from the Latin anxietatem (nominative anxietas) (anguish, anxiety, solicitude) a noun of quality from anxius (uneasy, anxious, solicitous, distressed, troubled in mind) from angō (to distress, trouble), akin to the Ancient Greek ἄγχω (ánkhō) (to choke).  The construct of the Latin anxietās was anxi(us) (anxious) + -etās, a variant of -itās used if appearing before a vowel.  The -itas suffix was from the Proto-Italic -itāts & -otāts (-tās added to i-stems or o-stems, later used freely) and ultimately from the primitive Indo-European -tehats.    Synonyms include foreboding, uneasiness, perplexity, disquietude, disquiet, trouble, apprehension, restlessness & distress and it’s become a popular modifier (range anxiety, climate anxiety, separation anxiety, performance anxiety etc).  Anxiety is a noun; the noun plural is anxieties.

Xanax tablets.

Xanax is the brand name for the drug alprazolam which is a benzodiazepine.  It is a prescription medication primarily used to treat anxiety disorders, panic disorders and (more controversially) depression.  A fast & short-acting benzodiazepine, Xanax works by enhancing the activity of a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which helps to reduce anxiety and promote relaxation.  Xanax is regarded as effective for treating anxiety and related disorders when used as prescribed but can be habit-forming, leading to dependence and addiction.  Lindsay Lohan released (or "dropped" in the fashionable parlance) the track Xanax in 2019.  With a contribution from Finnish pop star Alma (Alma-Sofia Miettinen; b 1996), the accompanying music video was said to be “a compilation of vignettes of life”, Xanax reported as being inspired by Ms Lohan’s “personal life, including an ex-boyfriend and toxic friends”.  Structurally, Xanax was quoted as being based around "an interpolation of" Better Off Alone, by Dutch Eurodance-pop collective Alice Deejay, slowed to a Xanax-appropriate tempo.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and panic disorder (PD) were formalized when the third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) was released in 1980 although among clinicians, GAD had for some years been a noted thread in the literature but what was done in DSM-III was to map GAD onto the usual pattern of diagnostic criteria.  In practice, because of the high degree of co-morbidity with other disorders, the utility of GAD as defined was soon a regular topic of discussion at conferences and the DSM’s editors responded, the parameters of GAD refined in subsequent releases between 1987-1994 when GAD’s diagnostic criteria emerged in its recognizably modern form:

By the time the terminology for mental disorders began in the nineteenth century to be codified, the word anxiety had for hundreds of years been used in English to describe feelings of disquiet or apprehension and in the seventeenth century there was even a school of thought it was a pathological condition.  It was thus unsurprising that “anxiety” was so often an element in the psychiatry’s early diagnostic descriptors such as “pantophobia” and “anxiety neurosis”, terms which designated paroxysmal manifestations (panic attacks) as well as “interparoxysmal phenomenology” (the apprehensive mental state).  The notion of “generalized anxiety”, although not then in itself a diagnosis, was also one of the symptoms of many conditions including the vaguely defined neurasthenia which was probably understood by many clinicians as something similar to what would later be formalized as GAD.  As a distinct diagnostic category however, it wasn’t until the DSM-III was released in 1980 that GAD appeared, anxiety neurosis split into (1) panic disorder and (2) GAD.  When the change was made, the editors noted it was a response to comments from clinicians, something emphasised when DSM-III was in 1987 revised (DSM-III-R), in effect to acknowledge there was a class of patient naturally anxious (who might once have been called neurotic or pantophobic) quite distinct from those for whom a source of anxiety could be deduced.  Thus, the cognitive aspect of anxiety became the critical criterion but within the profession, some scepticism about the validity of GAD as a distinct diagnostic category emerged, the most common concern being the difficulty in determining clear boundaries between GAD, other anxiety-spectrum disorders and certain manifestations of depression.

The modern label aside, GAD has a really long lineage and elements of the diagnosis found in case histories written by doctors over the centuries would have seemed familiar to those working in the early nineteenth century, tales of concern or apprehension about the vicissitudes of life a common thing.  As psychiatry in those years began to coalesce as a speciality and papers increasingly published, it was clear the behaviour of those suffering chronic anxiety could culminate in paroxysmal attacks, thus it was that GAD and panic attacks came to be so associated.  In English, the term panophobia (sometimes as pantaphobia, pantophobia or panphobia) dates from 1871, the word from the Late Latin pantŏphŏbŏs, from the Ancient Greek παντοφόβος (all-fearing (literally “anxiety about everything”)).  It appears in the surviving works of medieval physicians and it seems clear there were plenty of “pantophobic patients” who allegedly were afraid of everything and it was not a product of the Dark Ages, Aristotle (384-322 BC) in the seventh book of his Nicomachean Ethics (350 BC) writing there were men “…by nature apt to fear everything, even the squeak of a mouse”.

The first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I (1952) comprised what seems now a modest 130 pages.  The latest edition (DSM-5-TR (2022)) has 991 pages.  The growth is said to be the result of advances in science and a measure of the increasing comprehensiveness of the manual, not an indication that madness in the Western world is increasing.  The editors of the DSM would never use the word "madness" but for non-clinicians it's a handy term which can be applied to those beyond some point on the spectrum of instability.

Between Aristotle and the publication of the first edition of the DSM in 1952, physicians (and others) pondered, treated and discussed the nature of anxiety and theories of its origin and recommendations for treatment came and went.  The DSM (retrospectively labelled DSM-I) was by later standards a remarkably slim document but unsurprisingly, anxiety was included and discussed in the chapter called “Psychoneurotic Disorders”, the orthodoxy of the time that anxiety was a kind of trigger perceived by the conscious part of the personality and produced by a threat from within; how the patient reacted to this resulted in their reaction(s).  There was in the profession a structural determinism to this approach, the concept of defined “reaction patterns” at the time one of the benchmarks in US psychiatry.  When DSM-II was released in 1968, the category “anxiety reaction” was diagnosed when the anxiety was diffuse and neither restricted to specific situations or objects (ie the phobic reactions) nor controlled by any specific psychological defense mechanism as was the case in dissociative, conversion or obsessive-compulsive reactions. Anxiety reaction was characterized by anxious expectation and differentiated from normal apprehensiveness or fear.  Significantly, in DSM-II the reactions were re-named as “neuroses” and it was held anxiety was the chief characteristic of “neuroses”, something which could be felt or controlled unconsciously by various symptoms.  This had the effect that the diagnostic category “anxiety neurosis” encompassed what would later be expressed as panic attacks and GAD.

A: Excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation), occurring more days than not for at least 6 months, about a number of events or activities (such as work or matters relating to educational institutions).

B: The patient finds it difficult to control the worry.

C: The anxiety and worry are associated with three (or more) of the following six symptoms:

(1) Restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge.

(2) Being easily fatigued.

(3) Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank.

(4) Irritability.

(5) Muscle tension.

(6) Sleep disturbance (difficulty falling or staying asleep, or restless, unsatisfying sleep).

The key change really was for the criteria for GAD requiring fewer symptoms. Whereas with the DSM-IV-TR (2000) individuals needed to exhibit at least three physical and three cognitive symptoms for a diagnosis of GAD, under DSM-5 (2013), only one of each was required so not only was the accuracy and consistency of diagnosis (by definition) improved, the obvious practical effect was better to differentiate GAD from other anxiety disorders and (importantly) the usual worries and concerns endemic to the human condition.  The final significant aspect of the evolution was that by the time of DSM-5, GAD had become effectively a exclusionary diagnosis in that it cannot be diagnosed if the anxiety is better explained by other anxiety disorders and nor can GAD be caused directly by stressors or trauma.

Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No 2 (The Age of Anxiety) was inspired by WH Auden's long poem of the same name.

WH Auden's (1907-1973) The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (1944) divided critics, said by some to be "his best work to date" and by others to be "dull and an obvious failure", some of whom rubbed in the critical salt by adding Leonard Bernstein's (1918-1990) Symphony No 2 (1948-1949), inspired by the poem, was the finer piece of art.  It was better received in the US where it was written, winning the Pulitzer prize but whether or not influenced by the reaction, Auden would never again complete an epic-length work.  Like HG Wells' (1866-1946) Mind at the End of its Tether (1945), it was very much a work of the unhappy time in which Auden found himself and in some ways picked up from his lament September 1st, 1939 (a poem he later renounced).  As a poem, The Age of Anxiety is a delight for structuralists, its six sections (prologue, life-story, dream-quest, dirge, masque & epilogue (and emulated by the six movements in Bernstein's symphony (each movement sub-divided))) able to be deconstructed even mathematically but, the most common complaint is that although his four protagonists (three men and a woman) are very different people and all from a world of vernacular American English, their thoughts on the human condition and their own are expressed as if each had once gone up to Oxford to take a degree in English, as Auden in his youth had done.  Such voices in poems are not unusual but the critics go further in claiming that anyone new to the work, were the characters' names to be concealed, could not possibly guess which of the four is talking.  While it becomes clear the abstractions he maps upon his four represent thought, intuition, sensation & feeling, while helpful as a device through which his word-view can be discussed, as flesh & blood characters they are vague indeed.  Still, literature should perhaps be enjoyed for what it is rather than what it's not; one doesn't need to find plausible what Philip Roth (1933-1918) thinks might be the thoughts of a woman to find pleasure in the text and it's the same with Auden's The Age of Anxiety.  Those interested in poetry as art will read such cleverness with relish, ticking the boxes on the path to technical ecstasy.  Those who want to feel something should stick to Sylvia Path (1932-1963).      

We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

WH Auden in The Age of Anxiety (1944).