[Tex/LaTex] BibLatex Cite Primary Source Within Book

Question

How do I cite a Primary Source within a secondary source?

For example, in Eyewitness to Irish History, a section of the Primary Source The Mystery of the Casement Ship, the particular section being a quote from the captain of a sunk ship, is shown. How do I cite this primary source, while it is within a secondary?

I am using Biblatex.

Answer 1

I'd say your question isn't really TeX-related, but it's a question of how to properly mark a second-hand quote as such -- or, as I prefer to call them, a ›blind quote‹. (= a quote from a text that you haven't actually seen, but that's only been handed down to you through another text. Blind quotes tend to be frowned upon and are best dealt with by staying away from them.) The answer to that question will be the same across all software systems, and very similar across different citation schemes as well. A jon said, such a blind quote is usually marked by a phrase like »quoted in«, followed by a reference to the book that quotes the quote you want to quote.

So, with biblatex, you'll simply use the prenote for that:

\cite[quoted in][123]{Doe87}
...depending on the style that you've set up biblatex to use, this will give you something like:

»...«, said Captain Soandso in 1774 (quoted in Doe 1987: 123).

or

»...«, said Captain Soandso in 1774.¹
__________
1) quoted in Doe 1987: 123.

etc.

[alternative scenario:] If the Eyewitness book contains more than just a quote from the Mystery text, i.e. if Eyewitness is a collection of primary sources that are re-printed in large portions -- then we're no longer talking about blind quotes, since these collections are usually meant to be quoted from, as they make available text that are hard to find otherwise.

bib(la)tex has the @INCOLLECTION entry type for things like that. The Eyewitness will get their own entry, as will the Mystery. The latter has a crossref field referring to the former, so that, in the bibliography/references, the Mystery will be a self-contained entry providing the reader with all the information they need to track down the text that you're citing -- regardless of whether, at a differnt point in your text, you cite the main book or not. Note that this example uses authoryear style, but it should work with any other style as well.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}              
\usepackage{filecontents}          
\usepackage[style=authoryear]{biblatex}

\begin{filecontents}{testbib.bib}
@COLLECTION{Eye,
  editor =       {Witness, Walt},
  title =        {Eyewitness to Irish History},
  publisher =    {Dublin UP},
  year =         {2013},
  address =      {Dublin}
}
@INCOLLECTION{Ship,
  author =       {Captain, Kirk},
  title =        {The Mystery of the Casement Ship},
  year =         {1774},
  pages =        {123-24},
  crossref =     {Eye}
}
\end{filecontents}

\bibliography{testbib.bib}

\begin{document}
\enquote{\dots} says \textcite[123]{Ship}.
\printbibliography
\end{document}