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The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
by Winchester, Simon
- Used
- Very Good
- Paperback
- first
- Condition
- Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 019517500X
- ISBN 13
- 9780195175004
- Seller
-
Tokyo, Japan
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
US: Oxford University Press, 2004. First Edition. Paperback. Very Good. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. From the best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and Krakatoa comes a truly wonderful celebration of the English language and of its unrivaled treasure house, the Oxford English Di ctionary. Writing with marvelous brio, Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language--"so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy"--and pays homage to the great dictionary makers, from "the irredeemably famous" Samuel Johnson to the "short, pale, smug and boastful" schoolmaster from New Hartford, Noah Webster. He then turns his unmatched talent for story-telling to the making of this most venerable of dictionaries. In this fast-paced narrative, the reader will discover lively portraits of such key figures as the brilliant but tubercular first editor Herbert Coleridge (grandson of the poet), the colorful, boisterous Frederick Furnivall (who left the project in a shambles), and James Augustus Henry Murray, who spent a half-century bringing the project to fruition. Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making--how unexpectedly tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was, or how fraternity turned out so much longer and monkey so much more ancient than anticipated--and how bondmaid was left out completely, its slips found lurking under a pile of books long after the B-volume had gone to press. We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium--the Scrippy or the Shed, as.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Infinity Books Japan (JP)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- RWARE0000052526
- Title
- The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
- Author
- Winchester, Simon
- Format/Binding
- Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- ISBN 10
- 019517500X
- ISBN 13
- 9780195175004
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Place of Publication
- US
- Date Published
- 2004
Terms of Sale
Infinity Books Japan
We return books after seven days, if the customer is not 100% happy with our transaction.
About the Seller
Infinity Books Japan
Biblio member since 2006
Tokyo
About Infinity Books Japan
Infinity Books Japan,was founded in the year 2002, we pride ourselves in being there for our customers, we deal in, used, rare, out of print and first editions.
Glossary
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- New
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- Spine
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- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...