teeming with knowledge and alive with insights. Winchester handles humor and awe with modesty and cunning. His prose is supremely readable.

New York Times Book Review

exuberant, serious, funny, short, full, entrancingly readable.

Jane Gardam, The Spectator

compelling reading. Winchester is excellent on the theory and practice of lexicography

Sunday Times

Se alle

Irresistible

The Independent

Simon Winchester's book is a fascinating catalogue of political wrangles, logistical conundrums and personal battles that underlay the work's creation. This book is a delightful curiosity

Zoe Green, Daily Telegraph

Simon Winchester has told this story with a touch of human drama and with a true sense of the social history that surrounded the enterprise.

Stephen Wade, Contemporary Review

A lively and largely informative chronicle of a still-staggering enterprise

Helen Zaltzman, Observer

absorbing and entertaining

Thmes Literary Supplement

'The greatest enterprise of its kind in history,' was the verdict of British prime minister Stanley Baldwin in June 1928 when The Oxford English Dictionary was finally published. With its 15,490 pages and nearly two million quotations, it was indeed a monumental achievement, gleaned from the efforts of hundreds of ordinary and extraordinary people who made it their mission to catalogue the English language in its entirety. In The Meaning of Everything, Simon Winchester celebrates this remarkable feat, and the fascinating characters who played such a vital part in its execution, from the colourful Frederick Furnivall, cheerful promoter of an all-female sculling crew, to James Murray, self-educated son of a draper, who spent half a century guiding the project towards fruition. Along the way we learn which dictionary editor became the inspiration for Kenneth Grahame's Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, and why Tolkien found it so hard to define 'walrus'. Written by the bestselling author of The Professor and teh Madman and The Map That Changed the World, The Meaning of Everything is an enthralling account of the creation of the world's greatest dictionary.
Les mer
The creation of the first Oxford English Dictionary was an extraordinary endeavour, lasting over 70 years. In The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester recounted one fascinating episode; in The Meaning of Everything, he tells the whole story of the host of characters who carried out 'the greatest enterprise of its kind in history'.
Les mer
PROLOGUE; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS; EPILOGUE; BIBLIOGRAPHY
By the author of the hugely successful titles, The Surgeon of Crowthorne and The Map That Changed the World, another runaway bestselling book Daily Mail Book of the Week BBC1's 'Imagine' documentary, featuring the story of the extraordinary characters behind the making of the first Oxford English Dictionary, was watched by millions The Meaning of Everything has been shortlisted for the Nibbies (British Book Awards) as history book of the year 'teeming with knowledge and alive with insights. Winchester handles humor and awe with modesty and cunning. His prose is supremely readable.' New York Times Book Review 'exuberant, serious, funny, short, full, entrancingly readable' Jane Gardam, Spectator
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780192805768
Publisert
2004
Utgiver
Oxford University Press; Oxford University Press
Vekt
307 gr
Høyde
196 mm
Bredde
129 mm
Dybde
15 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
288

Forfatter

Om bidragsyterne

Simon Winchester, OBE, is a British writer, journalist, and broadcaster. As a journalist he covered major events, including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. He is the author of Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories (2010), The Professor and the Madman (1999), The Map that Changed the World (2001), and A Crack in the Edge of the World (2005), all of which have been New York Times bestsellers.