Even though I am fond of boasting that I write mainly for myself, and that my Residua website offers an excellent search engine for my own use, I sometimes contradict myself rather explicitly. This is what I do whenever I use the “dear reader” phrase in my writings. As I was shaving this morning, it suddenly crossed my mind that this would be a good search phrase for my content analysis series. The search quite surprised me a short while later. Some forty pieces bearing this phrase stretch between 1980 and 2012. The occasional gaps between years are pretty short—from one to three years. Most important, the distribution of these pieces is on the flat side. There are two peaks, one in 1996 and another in 2000, both of which contain only four pieces bearing the phrase. The period between 1994 and 2002 is immediately noticeable by the increased incidence of the phrase, but there are only three pieces a year bearing it in all years minus the two squat peaks. The most obvious explanation for this grouping is that the bulk of my magnum opus written until then was published as a book in 1996.[1] I must have been especially conscious of the reader both before and after the publication date. Why make a book otherwise? Be that as it may, the phrase follows me for more than thirty years. It seems to pop up whenever I feel kind of vulnerable. You are my witness, dear reader.

Footnote

1. Residua I-XX: Selections, London: The Hereford Salon, 1996.