Citing multiple chapters in the same book under the same reference number

Question

I'm using bibtex and [super,comma,numbers,square]natbib to manage my bibliography at the moment. I've got a single book from which I'd like to cite multiple shorter passages, but I'd prefer to not generate a separate bibliography entry for each separate reference to the same work.

Ideally, I'd be able to generate citations that look like: Lorem ipsum dolor^{[21:p137,41,73:p19]}, but it seems like I would have to redefine \cite or \citep to get this to work and I'd rather not have to wade into that at the moment.

I'd be just as happy if I could get something like this: Lorem ipsum dolor^[21a,41,73b], where the bibliography would have multiple entries under the same number, like:

21. Constructing fictional book titles for example text: A Primer, John R. Fakename (1874),

a. pp 127-139, b. pp140-141

The particular style of how the multiple pages are displayed is not quite so important, but is it possible to "link" multiple entries in this way? Is there a way to link a @BOOK entry with an @INBOOK entry in bibtex?

Answer 1

A quick and dirty hack method would be to use the "text after" option of the cite and citep[][]{} commands to add the "a" and "b" in the initial reference in the text and use the notes field in the bibliography to provide the "a" and "b" clarification. That systenm should work, although it is quite clunky and depending on how often you have the case you described, a better solution probably is possible.

So in your text, you would use

citep[a]{<cite-key to item 21>}

and in your bib file in the notes field provide "a. pp 127-139, b. pp140-141"

as the notes filed usually gets rendered last, but before a possible hyperref backref, this should appear at the right place. But it might be the case that it doesn't appear in a new line. That's for someone else to figure out ;-)