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Title: Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature by John Bartlett, Emily Morison Beck, et al ISBN: 0-333-30917-0 Publisher: Pan Macmillan Pub. Date: 1980 Format: Paperback |
Average Customer Rating: 3.76 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Required For the Serious Public Speaker or Persuasive Writer
Comment: I'm a politician and frequently prepare speeches and articles that are meant to persuade or provide appropriate commentary. Bartlett's is indespensible if your style accomodates the quoting of others. For those moments when I must mark events (Memorial Day) or meet an expectation of seriousness I find Bartlett's to be an excellent source for just the right phrase.
This is a massive reference book, which is good in and of itself. Where Bartlett's really shines is in it's organization. Quotes in the body are arranged chronologically and by author. The index is superb, with quotes locatable by subject and author. For most topics, the writer will be confronted with multiple quotes from which to choose which best illustrates the heft and value of this tome.
My only criticism, which has been noted by other commentators, is that this latest edition does seem to be moderately invaded by political correctness. For example, the quotes selected to characterize Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher almost seem to be designed to belittle their historic contributions and commentary -- while much more historic and significant utterances are ignored (missing for example are "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," or any of Reagan's wonderful D-Day commemmoration speech). I personnally find this annoying because my need for quotes does run to the political. One also gets the sneaky suspicion that some of the newer entries were inserted for reasons other than the significance or value of the quote.
That said however, the book is an excellent resource. It is rich, covering almost any topic you may want to highlight and reaches back to beyond biblical times for quotable utterances. A must for any reference library.
Rating: 5
Summary: Absolutely Brilliant!
Comment: "It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's 'Familiar Quotations' is an admirable work, and I studied it intently." Sir Winston Churchill (1930) Sir Winston does a remarkable job of "reviewing" "FQ", and 5 pages of his own words are contained within (the aforementioned quote is on page 619 in this edition). There are over 50 pages of Shakespeare, as well. The index is superb, one can find quotes appropriate for speeches, letters, and personal enjoyment with ease. Bravo John Bartlett!
Rating: 5
Summary: Invaluable, authoritative, probably the "best"
Comment: Comparing this, the 17th edition of the best known and arguably the most authoritative collection of quotations ("familiar," memorable, or just plain quotable--you choose the terminology), to its predecessor the 16th edition, the question arises, should you upgrade? I own both books and have examined them in some detail. I have used the 16th for many years.
The 17th is set in a new typeface which is both slightly narrower and less bold than that of the 16th. The result is a cleaner look to the pages and more white space. The difference in the number of pages--1431 for the new, 1405 for the old--is slight, and a little misleading. In fact the new addition has more entries--"around one hundred" authors are quoted for the first time, and some authors have additional entries. But the text in the 17th actually takes up less room. Its Index, for example, although it has more entries, has only 564 pages to 608 for the 16th. This is accomplished mainly because the narrower type is also shorter, allowing more entries per column.
The question then is, is the smaller type harder to read? Surprisingly, I would say no. The new type is sharper, crisper and, because the pages have a cleaner appearance, is easier on the eyes. I have a strong suspicion that the publishers--whose investment in this most famous and most important reference work is considerable--tested the readability of their new type before adopting it!
Some additional space, according to editor Justin Kaplan, has been gained by the elimination of "several hundred purely mechanical and nonsubstantive cross-references." For example in the 16th on page 247 is given this quotation from Fredrich von Logau: "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small." A footnote at the bottom of the column refers us to Euripides and George Herbert who wrote something similar. In the 17th that footnote is gone and we have no handy reference to the two earlier instances of von Logau's expression. I think this is a clear loss and not something simply "mechanical and nonsubstantive" as editor Justin Kaplan has it in his Preface to the Seventeenth Edition. (p. viii)
Okay, what about the new authors being quoted and the additional quotations by authors already present in the 16th addition? Do they constitute a significant upgrade?
This is a question difficult to answer partly because only time will tell if the new additions--many of them are so new--will really remain worth remembering. Bill Clinton's rather infamous "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" surely will be around for a while, but film director Cameron Crowe's "Show me the money!" from his film Jerry Maguire (1997) may not seem so memorable or familiar a generation or two down the road. (Or maybe I have that backwards!) A quick way to address the question of whether the new quotations are worthwhile is to look at the last pages of entries just before the Anonymous section. Because Bartlett's presents its quotations chronologically, from the earliest (the first quote is from the Egyptian The Song of the Harper 2650 B.C.) to the latest (Sesame Street's Kermit the Frog's "It ain't easy bein' green") most of the new entries are near the back. By the way, technically speaking, Kermit the Frog's dictum is older than Cameron Crowe's movie. But that is a quibble.
Of course there are additions that are not from new authors. French mathematician, Pierre de Fermat, who does not appear in the 16th, appears here in the 17th, noting that his "truly marvellous" proof for his famous Last Theorem, will not fit into "this margin." Fermat was rediscovered by Bartlett's no doubt because in 1994 Andrew Wiles finally proved the theorem--taking considerably more than a margin to do it, by the way.
Some other authors appearing for the first time are Mother Teresa, Richard Feynman, Margaret Atwood, Princes Diana, etc. Vladimir Nabokov, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein and W. Somerset Maugham are among about two dozen who have had their space extended. Kaplan doesn't mention it, but there are also some deletions from the previous edition. I was particularly disappointed to find that one of the central tenets of the Vedas, from the Chandogya Upanishad, "Thou art that" was eliminated.
Also eliminated (and I think this is to the good) are the Ibid's that sometimes ran all the way down the page in the 16th. Now the title of the work is repeated.
If you don't have this reference, you really should get it or the comparable Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. See my review of that very excellent book for a comparison. Suffice it to say here, if you are an American who prefers a slight emphasis on American authors to an emphasis on English authors, you'll want to get this book.
Bottom line: no serious writer (especially of literature, culture and history) should be without this invaluable and authoritative book. Next to a dictionary it is my most consulted work of reference.
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Title: The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations) by Elizabeth Knowles ISBN: 0198601735 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes by André Bernard, Clifton Fadiman ISBN: 0316082678 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: Roget International Thesaurus Indexed Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer ISBN: 0060185759 Publisher: HarperResource Pub. Date: 15 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (Oxford Paperback Reference) by Ned Sherrin ISBN: 0192800450 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less), The by John M. Shanahan ISBN: 0060194111 Publisher: HarperResource Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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