The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Publication of the 6th edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (9 September 2004) is a cause for celebration; it is also an appropriate
moment to look back at the inception of what has become an iconic reference
book.
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations was first published in 1941, and
warmly welcomed (the Illustrated London News for 18 October 1941 saw it
as "combining authority with charm"). It was a collection for its own time: a
strongly literary content with a few frivolities (advertising slogans and
popular songs), virtually no scientists, and a limited number of politicians
(Winston Churchill, just emerging from his wilderness years, was represented by
one quotation). But then as now, the Dictionary provided its readers with
the answer to the tantalizing question, Who said that?
Demand was such that the publishers had to struggle with wartime restrictions
to get a reprint on to the market. This was a "constantly recurring trouble" of
the time; a more individual difficulty arose with the famously litigious Lord
Alfred Douglas.
Lord Alfred was distressed to find that he was represented in the
Dictionary by a line ("the placid pug that paces in the park") from an
early nonsense poem. Considering that this was an inadequate representation of
his literary mastery, he complained to the Oxford Publisher, Humphrey Milford,
who pointed out that the book was a collection of familiar quotations, rather
than an anthology of authors. Milford explained further: "I see a pug (not
often, thank Heaven, in these days) and I at once think of your line and so do
many other people." Lord Alfred found this "singularly unconvincing", and the
correspondence rumbled on. It is possible to feel some sympathy for the
solicitor whose instructions forced him to write, "We are acting for Lord Alfred
Douglas, who, as you must know, is one of the greatest living poets and has been
so described by those best able to form an opinion and entitled to express it."
The placid pug no longer paces through the pages of the Dictionary
(the breed is represented only by the 19th-century child author Marjorie
Fleming's address to a cherished pet "O lovely O most charming pug"), but the
book's 20,000 quotations offer a rich and diverse blend of voices and sources
from past and present. To mark the original publication, Bernard Darwin's
Introduction to the First Edition of 1941 is reprinted in full, and the new
Introduction gives a short history of the Dictionary (including the tale
of the placid pug and the less than placid poet).
Elizabeth Knowles
01/09/2004
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