首页
登录
职称英语
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of N
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of N
游客
2023-12-18
44
管理
问题
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers, Yet in 10 years’ time a revised version of the whole caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DN B. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade.
When Dr Nicholls wrote to The Spectator in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions. (Well, she had written to" other quality newspapers" too.)As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn’t file copy on time; some who did send too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr Nieholls.
There remains the dinner-party game of who’s in, who’s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr. John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in, Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy (the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons) notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy (he had tried to escape by ship to America).
It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known.
Of Hugo of Bury St Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments:" Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility." Then there had to be more women, too (12 per cent, against the original DBN’s 3), such as Roy Strong’s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks:" Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory." Doesn’t seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed (such as Merlin) and even managed to give thanks to J. W. Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote," except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is no trace of J. W. Clerke". [br] Crippen was absent from the DNB______
选项
A、because he escaped to the U. S.
B、because death sentence had been abolished.
C、for reasons not clarified.
D、because of the editors’ mistake.
答案
C
解析
细节题。第三段中作者提到包括Christie的原因是促进在英国取消死刑,但是Crippen的犯罪在历史上也创了记录,却没有被包括进去,到底是什么原因,作者没有明确地说明。
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.tihaiku.com/zcyy/3284948.html
相关试题推荐
Somepeoplesaythatuniversitystudentsshouldconcentrateontheirownfiel
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
WHYSHOULDanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
WHYSHOULDanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
WHYSHOULDanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
InNathanielHawthorne’sopinion,romanceshouldbeA、fullofexcitement.B、amix
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
随机试题
[originaltext]M:Howaretheirtalksgoingon?Havetheyreachedanyagreement?
"PaleolithicArt"→Theseveralmillenniafollowing
患者,男性,70岁。晨练时跌倒后右手掌着地,出现腕部疼痛、肿胀、畸形、活动受限。
疾病发生,发展和转归,取决于A.治疗的方法 B.病邪的性质 C.病变的部位
房地产经纪机构在其设立的分支机构解散后对其尚未清偿的全部债务承担责任,其中承担有
下列关于国际贸易惯例的说法中,正确的有()。A.国际贸易惯例本身不是法律 B
简述我国现行宪法的内容和特点。
假定A企业2010年支付的利息费用为4万元。其税后利润为17万元,2010年年初
改善混凝土拌和物流变性能的外加剂的是()。A.引气剂 B.缓凝剂 C.
有关阿托品药理作用的叙述,错误的是A.抑制腺体分泌 B.扩张血管改善微循环
最新回复
(
0
)