FIRST DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
MACDONNEL, David Evans.
A Dictionary of Quotations, in most frequent use. Taken from the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian Languages; translated into English. With Illustrations historical and idiomatic … London: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson … 1797.
London: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson … 1797
8vo., pp. v, [119], clean tear to F8 mended without loss; a very good copy in contemporary polished calf, rebacked; cloth box.
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A Dictionary of Quotations, in most frequent use. Taken from the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian Languages; translated into English. With Illustrations historical and idiomatic … London: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson … 1797.
First edition of the first English dictionary of quotations (Alston), albeit in foreign tongues. Drawn principally from Latin authors, with some quotations from living languages (mainly French) and some phrases from the law, the dictionary was compiled over some years by ‘look[ing] into every publication political or miscellaneous’ and extracting ‘the Quotations which are most popular, or … the Phrases most necessary to be understood’.
Each quotation, in the original language, is followed by source, a translation, and an explanation of its bearing or application. For example:
Homo sum & humani a me nil alienum puto. – Lat. Terence. – “I am a man, and nothing which relates to man can be foreign to my bosom.” – This is the strong phrase of a philanthropist, which, it is to be feared, is less frequently felt than it is quoted.
The book clearly proved useful and there were reprints well into the nineteenth century.
Alston, III, 755. ESTC lists copies at BL, Bodley, Indiana, Chicago, and Illinois, to which Alston adds Harvard and Yale.
