The Oxford Minidictionary of Quotations [antikvár]

PREFACE The famous Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has, over the forty years since it first appeared, held a unique place among reference works. The ulti-mate cultural reduction the iron rations of Literature in a knapsack' is how Anthony Burgess described the third edition when it was published in 1979. The Oxford Minidictionary of Quotations is derived from this most recent edition of ODQ for those, with or without knapsacks, who want a book they can fit into their pockets. In spite of its small format, the dictionary offers nearly 4,000 of the most quoted items from more than 700 authors, writers, wits, philosophers, politicians, and many others. Each quotation is indexed under various key words, to help the user track down half-remembered (or misremembered) phrases. The index may be used, too, to seek out quotations appropriate to a given subject or for a particular occasion. Traditional proverbs, nursery rhymes, catch-phrases from films, radio, and television, adver-tising slogans, and the words of popular songs have regretfully been set aside from the present applica-tion of the word 'quotation', not least because of the difficulty of establishing authorship in such areas. For items of the first two kinds, the reader will find The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs and The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes invaluable. B. J. PALMER March 1983