From the Shelves of the Paco Library

I am a great fan of anthologies, dictionaries and other reference works, and no publisher has done more to feed my addiction than the Oxford University Press: The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction, The Oxford Book of Political Anecdotes, The Oxford Book of English Talk, the list just goes on and on. They are a browser’s delight, and have been a tremendous boon in introducing me to authors whose work I may never otherwise have encountered.

One of my favorites from the series is The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes. A sample, featuring the comically stormy meeting between Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith:

“Mr Boswell has chosen to omit, for reasons which will be presently obvious, that Johnson and Adam Smith met at Glasgow; but I have been assured by Professor John Miller that they did so, and that Smith, leaving the party in which he had met Johnson, happened to come to another company where Miller was. Knowing that Smith had been in Johnson’s society, they were anxious to know what had passed, and the more so as Dr. Smith’s temper seemed much ruffled. At first Smith would only answer, ‘He’s a brute – he’s a brute;’ but on closer examination, it appeared that Johnson no sooner saw Smith than he attacked him for some point of his famous letter on the death of Hume. Smith vindicated the truth of his statement. ‘What did Johnson say?’ was the universal inquiry. ‘Why, he said,’ replied Smith, with the deepest impression of resentment, ‘he said, you lie!’ ‘And what did you reply?’ ‘I said, you are the son of a -----‘. On such terms did these two great moralists meet and part, and such was the classical dialogue between two great teachers of philosophy.”

And here’s something from The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes:

“In 1739, the Russians and Turks, who had been at war, met to conclude terms of peace. The commissioners were Marshall Keith for the Russians and the Grand Vizier for the Turks. These two personages met, and carried on their negotiations by means of interpreters. When all was concluded they rose to separate, but just before leaving the Grand Vizier suddenly went to Marshall Keith, and, taking him cordially by the hand, declared in the broadest Scotch dialect that it made him ‘unco’ happy to meet a countryman in his exalted station’. As might be expected, Keith, who himself was a Scotsman in the service of Russia, stared with astonishment, and was eager for an explanation of the mystery. ‘Dinna be surprised’, the Grand Vizier exclaimed; ‘I’m o’ the same country wi’ yoursell, mon! I mind weel seein’ you and your brother, when boys, passin’ by the school at Kirkaldy; my father, sir, was bellman o’ Kirkaldy.’”

As an introduction to, and survey of, literature and history (including many intriguing little byways), these books are hard to beat (we have the internet, of course, but I am irremediably a member of the Old School, who likes the feel of a solid volume in his hands, and the extremely minor, but pleasant, exercise of actually turning the pages).