Biblatex, Bibliography, and \bibnamedash for treatises published in/as articles

Question

Usually the texts of historical authors (e.g. Aristotle, Plato) are published as books. So, the BibLaTeX-entry would be book with the various fields for editor, introduction, translator, etc. used appropriately.

Sometimes, a number of shorter treatises are published within a single book. This can be handled with BibLaTeX by using one entry book or collection for the main book and for each treatise a bookinbook with crossref to the entry of the main book. In this case, the relevant information about editor, introduction, translator must be put in the field Titleaddon by using, for example: \bibstring{byeditortrcoin} John Doe. -- At least this is the solution I am using, because I could not find a better way to deal with these. But that actually seems fine.

Sometimes, however, a shorter treatise is published in form of an article. The issue is that it is no good solution to have them simply as an article in the bib-file, because then whenever the title of that treatise is quoted, it is in quotation marks (as a title of an article usually is). Titles of treatises, however, should be in italics (just as all the other treatises published as book are bookinbook). So, I needed a solution for this, and I also found one, but now I also found an issue with that solution. My solution so far is to have the following BibLaTeX entries:

@article{wisnovsky:menn:2012,
    Author = {Stephen Menn and Robert Wisnovsky},
    Journaltitle = {Mideo},
    Options = {skipbib=true},
    Pages = {73--96},
    Title = {Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī\subtitlepunct \mkbibemph{On the Four Scientific Questions Concerning the Three Kinds of Existence}},
    Volume = {29},
    Year = {2012}}

@book{yahya:wisnovsky:menn:2012,
    Author = {{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}},
    Keywords = {Primary Source},
    Title = {Maqāla fī l-buḥūṯ al-ʿilmiyya al-arbaʿa ʿan aṣnāf al-wuǧūd al-ṯalāṯa al-ilāhī wa-l-ṭabīʿī wa-l-manṭiqī},
    Titleaddon = {\bibstring{byeditortrin} \fullcite{wisnovsky:menn:2012}}}

As you can see, the second entry is the treatise as a book, so its title will be in italics. The information about its editor, introduction, translator is in the fiel Titleaddon which also contains a \fullcite to add the rest of the information by using all the information in the first entry which is the normal entry for the original article (NB: the article has a different title than the treatise which it contains!). I made sure that the first entry does not show up in the bibliography by using the option Options = {skipbib=true}.

The result is nice. It is the following:

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Maqāla fī l-buḥūṯ al-ʿilmiyya al-arbaʿa ʿan aṣnāf al-wuǧūd al-ṯalāṯa al-ilāhī wa-l-ṭabīʿī wa-l-manṭiqī. Edited and translated, with an introduction, by Stephen Menn and Robert Wisnovsky. “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. On the Four Scientific Questions Concerning the Three Kinds of Existence”. In: Mideo 29 (2012), 73–96.

Perfect. -- BUT: In the bibliography, I get the following issue. Repeated instance of the same author name or editor name is replaced by a \bibnamedash. But now, because I invoke in the Titleaddon field a \fullcite command, I get the following result:

Bibliography

...

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Book One. Information blabla.

----------. Book Two. Information blabla.

----------. Maqāla fī l-buḥūṯ al-ʿilmiyya al-arbaʿa ʿan aṣnāf al-wuǧūd al-ṯalāṯa al-ilāhī wa-l-ṭabīʿī wa-l-manṭiqī. Edited and translated, with an introduction, by Stephen Menn and Robert Wisnovsky. “Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. On the Four Scientific Questions Concerning the Three Kinds of Existence”. In: Mideo 29 (2012), 73–96. [this is my special entry]

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. Book Three. Information blabla.

----------. Book Four. Information blabla.

...

So, the authorname of Book Three is repeated because -- I guess -- I invoked the \fullcite command which has its own author/editor name information.

Surely I used this workaround, because I did not know of a better way for how to deal with treatises published as articles (or as parts of books). What I would like to know now is:

1. Is there a better way to deal with these kinds of publications which keeps all my desired output formatting but which avoids the bibliography issue?
2. Or alternatively: how can I avoid the repeated authorname in the Bibliography?

Regarding #2: I'd be also happy with a dirty workaround, for example manually "overwriting" the author/editor information that governs the \bibnamedash stuff, such as having the following imaginary solution where I edit the titleaddon field in my second BibLaTeX entry thusly:

`Titleaddon = {\bibstring{byeditortrin} \fullcite{wisnovsky:menn:2012}\bibnamedashauthoreditorinfo{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}}`

Any ideas?

MWE

%!TEX TS-program = lualatexmk
\documentclass{scrbook}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{Linux Libertine O}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=authortitle-comp,abbreviate=false,]{biblatex}
\renewcommand*{\bibnamedash}{\rule[0.48ex]{3em}{0.14ex}\labelnamepunct\space}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{wisnovsky:menn:2012,
    Author = {Stephen Menn and Robert Wisnovsky},
    Journaltitle = {Mideo},
    Options = {skipbib=true},
    Pages = {73--96},
    Title = {Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī\subtitlepunct \mkbibemph{On the Four Scientific Questions Concerning the Three Kinds of Existence}},
    Volume = {29},
    Year = {2012}}
@bookinbook{yahyaibnadi:ibnabisaid:1988,
    Author = {{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}},
    Crossref = {yahyaibnadi:khalifat:1988},
    Pages = {314--336},
    Title = {Kitāb Aǧwiba Bišr al-Yahūdī ʿan masāʾilihī}}
@book{yahya:wisnovsky:menn:2012,
    Author = {{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}},
    Title = {Maqāla fī l-buḥūṯ al-ʿilmiyya al-arbaʿa ʿan aṣnāf al-wuǧūd al-ṯalāṯa al-ilāhī wa-l-ṭabīʿī wa-l-manṭiqī},
    Titleaddon = {\bibstring{byeditortrin} \fullcite{wisnovsky:menn:2012}}}
@bookinbook{yahyaibnadi:mawjudat:1988,
    Author = {{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}},
    Crossref = {yahyaibnadi:khalifat:1988},
    Pages = {266--274},
    Title = {Maqāla fī l-mawǧūdāt}}
@bookinbook{yahyaibnadi:alumuralamma:1988,
    Author = {{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}},
    Crossref = {yahyaibnadi:khalifat:1988},
    Pages = {148--159},
    Title = {Maqāla fī tabyīn wuǧūd al-umūr al-ʿāmmiyya wa-l-naḥw allaḏī ʿalayhi takūnu maḥmūla wa-l-naḥw allaḏī taḫruǧu bihī min an takūna maḥmūla}}
@book{yahyaibnadi:khalifat:1988,
    Annotator = {Saḥbān Ḫalīfāt},
    Author = {{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}},
    Editor = {Saḥbān Ḫalīfāt},
    Introduction = {Saḥbān Ḫalīfāt},
    Location = {Amman},
    Publisher = {al-Ǧāmiʿa al-Urduniyya},
    Series = {Manšūrāt al-Ǧāmiʿa al-Urduniyya},
    Title = {Maqālāt Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī al-falsafiyya},
    Year = {1988}}
@bookinbook{yahyaibnadi:gins:madda:1988,
    Author = {{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}},
    Crossref = {yahyaibnadi:khalifat:1988},
    Pages = {280--292},
    Title = {Šarḥ maʿānī maqālat al-Iskandar al-Afrūdīsī fī l-farq bayna al-ǧins wa-l-mādda}}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
\nocite{wisnovsky:menn:2012,yahyaibnadi:ibnabisaid:1988,yahya:wisnovsky:menn:2012,yahyaibnadi:mawjudat:1988,yahyaibnadi:alumuralamma:1988,yahyaibnadi:khalifat:1988,yahyaibnadi:gins:madda:1988}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Answer 1

Maïeul's biblatex-bookinarticle package adds support of the two new entry types @bookinarticle and @bookinincollection to biblatex.

@bookinarticle is a very good fit for what you have

@bookinarticle{yahya:wisnovsky:menn:2012,
    Author = {{Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī}},
    Title = {Maqāla fī l-buḥūṯ al-ʿilmiyya al-arbaʿa ʿan aṣnāf al-wuǧūd al-ṯalāṯa al-ilāhī wa-l-ṭabīʿī wa-l-manṭiqī},
    crossref =  {wisnovsky:menn:2012},
}

---

While you wait for the updated version of the package that brings the output slightly more in line with @article (see issue #4 at github) you might also want to add the lines (a copy of the definitions for @article from biblatex.def)

\DeclareFieldFormat[inarticle,bookinarticle]{series}{% series of a journal
  \ifinteger{#1}
    {\mkbibordseries{#1}~\bibstring{jourser}}
    {\ifbibstring{#1}{\bibstring{#1}}{#1}}}
\DeclareFieldFormat[inarticle,bookinarticle]{volume}{#1}% volume of a journal
\DeclareFieldFormat[inarticle,bookinarticle]{number}{#1}% number of a journal

to your preamble.