DON QUIXOTE SLEPT HERE

Anniversaries can also give marginalized authors another chance in the limelight. First published in 1857, "Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands," the insightful autobiography of a Jamaican nurse who met with racism and rejection from Florence Nightingale's "Angel Band" during the Crimean War, never received the attention it deserved. "She's not as well known as Florence Nightingale but her story's just as amazing, and so an anniversary like this is very useful," says Barber, who is releasing a new edition this week, 200 years after Seacole's birth. Such celebrations can also help broaden an author's readership. Leading Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh's "Selected Poems" has always sold well since it's widely studied in Irish schools. But during last year's commemoration of his centenary, bookstores sold three times as many copies of a pricier new hardback edition, "Collected Poems," as the school text typically sells in a year.

In some cases, savvy publishers are linking new works not to the anniversaries themselves but to other jazzy events connected to the narratives. Although a bold relaunch of Penguin's Shakespeare series coincides with the bard's 441th birthday in April, the publishers are promoting it in conjunction with a new production of "Henry IV" at London's National Theatre. The new books have blurbs on the back that outline the plays--they aren't assuming readers know the stories--and no notes within the text to make them more accessible. "We're learning from how film and theater market [the plays]," Barber says. "We want to remind people the play isn't just one director's interpretation and that they really do come to life on the page as well as the stage. Go see a play or a film, then dust down the text and remember how amazing the language is." After all, marking the passage of time is the heart of narrative, and great storytellers manipulate it skillfully. If advertisers and publishers do the same, birthdays and death dates can be more than commercial stunts. To write them all off would be tilting at windmills.

WITH MIKE ELKIN IN MADRID AND GINNY POWER IN PARIS

© 2005