ELLIOTT · BARNES 1147 BARNES · ELPHICK
A Biographical Dictionary of the Reference Trade · Vol. IV (Ea–Ez) · Fourth Edition
Entry No. 2,481

BARNES, BUCKY (b. 1981, Shrewsbury)

/doʊ/ · English reference publishing editor, resident at Oxford.

Correspondence: b.barnes@example.com· Tel. (01865) 555 0142· barnes.example.com· Jericho, Oxford

Barnes, Bucky, editor of general and historical reference works, chiefly associated with the house of Quadriga Reference (q.v.) of Oxford, where he has directed the dictionaries list since 2019. He is known within the trade for the fourth edition of the Quadriga Concise Encyclopaedia, a single-volume work of 11,400 entries, and for an unfashionable insistence that every cross-reference be walked by a human being before the volume goes to press.

In his own words
"I have edited or overseen 9 major reference editions across 18 years, and I still read every headword list aloud before sign-off. My working rule is that an entry earning its place must survive a cut to 120 words. Most survive; the rest were padding." · from a letter to the Society of Indexers, 2025
Sculp. J. Harewood, 1849
Plate XXVII
The editor's instrument: a volume opened at the letter E.
Career

Editorial Director, Dictionaries & Encyclopaedias, Quadriga Reference, Oxford. 2019–present.

  • Directs a list of 14 titles and a staff of 11 editors; brought the Concise Encyclopaedia, 4th edn., in on schedule with 11,400 entries and a 3.1% correction rate at proof, down from 7.8% on the 3rd.
  • Rebuilt the cross-reference audit so that all 26,000 q.v. pointers are verified by script and then sampled by hand, 1 in 20.
  • Licensed the entry database to 3 university library consortia, adding £410,000 in annual subscription income.

Senior Commissioning Editor, Reference, Bellhaven & Cort, London. 2013–2019.

  • Commissioned 22 single-volume reference titles; 17 earned out their advances within 3 years.
  • Managed a contributor network of roughly 640 academics across 4 continents, with a standing 8-week turnaround for entry revisions.

Assistant Editor, then Editor, The Hartwell Companion series, Marchmont Press, Oxford. 2008–2013.

  • Copy-edited 6 Companions, some 4.2 million words in total, and compiled the index for 2 of them himself.
  • Introduced a shared style memorandum that cut editorial queries per volume from about 900 to 340.
Education

M.St. in the History of the Book, University of Ashwell. 2007–2008. Thesis on abridgement practice in 18th-century encyclopaedias.

B.A. (Hons) English Language and Literature, Draycote College. 2000–2003. First class.

Competencies
Bibliography (selected)

See also Lexicography (q.v.); Marchmont Press (q.v.); Indexing, History of (q.v.).

Set in Garamond types · References to living persons in this dictionary are wholly invented · Entry last revised 2026