DISCOVERY 



A MONTHLY POPULAR 

 JOURNAL or KNOWTLLDGE 



No. 7. JULY 1920. 



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DISCOVERY. A Monthly Popular Journal of know- 



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Editorial Notes 



The Oxford University Press General Catalogue for 

 1920 has been sent me, and the announcement regard- 

 ing the Dictionary of National Biography and the 

 account of the Oxford Dictionary will be of interest to 

 readers. The Dictionary of National Biography was 

 presented recently to the University by the family of 

 the founder, the late George M. Smith. This, the 

 largest of all national collections of biographies, was 

 designed and the sole responsibility of its production 

 undertaken by the late George M. Smith in 1882. 

 It appeared in si.xty-three quarterly volumes from 

 January i, 1885, to Midsummer 1900 : Volumes 

 I-XXI under the editorship of Leslie Stephen, XXII- 

 XXVII under the joint editorship of Mr. Stephen 

 and Mr. Sidney Lee, and XXVII-LXIII (from H to 

 Z) under the sole editorship of Mr. Lee, now Sir Sidney 

 Lee. In order to include notable persons who died 

 during the progress of the work, a Supplement in three 

 volumes (LXIV-LXVI) was pubUshed in 1901-2, the 

 date of Queen Victoria's death, January 22, 1901, 

 being taken as its limit. These sixty-six volumes were 

 reprinted, with corrections, on thinner paper in 1908 

 and 1909 and reissued in twenty-two volumes. The 

 statistical account prefixed to the first volume, and 

 the Memoir of George M. Smith which follows the 

 Preface to Vol. XXII, give particulars of the distri- 



bution among the centuries of the lives — more than 

 thirty thousand in number — of the persons commem- 

 orated, of the principal contributors to the Dictionary, 

 and of the strenuous life of its Founder, who died 

 on April 6, igor. 



***** 



The Index and Epitome to the Dictionary and First 

 Supplement was designed by Mr. Smith, in consultation 

 with Sir Sidney Lee, as a " summary guide " in the 

 use of the Dictionary and its Supplement, and pub- 

 lished in 1903. Containing, as it does, exact names 

 and dates with other details sufficient for identification, 

 it supplies the quickest possible means of finding the 

 article required, whenever the full name or designation 

 of a person is not known beforehand. But as all the 

 articles of the Dictionary without exception appear 

 in it in abridged form, it is in itself within the compass 

 of its two thousand pages a complete biographical 

 dictionary, from which the main facts and dates of a 

 man's life may be ascertained, so that it is an excellent 

 addition to the smaller libraries for which the Dictionary 

 itself is too large. The Index and Epitome to the 

 Second Supplement (1913) is bound in with that of the 

 Dictionary and Supplement. 



***** 



The " Second Supplement " was undertaken by 

 Mrs. George M. Smith, edited by Sir Sidney Lee, and 

 published in three volumes 1912-13. It contains 

 biographies, 1660 in number, of noteworthy persons 

 who died between January 22, 1901, and December 31, 

 1911. It has during the war been out of print, but is 

 now being reprinted in one volume, and will be ready 

 shortly. 



Preliminary work is now being carried out under 

 the direction of Mr. H. W. Carless Davis, with a view 

 to maintaining and extending the usefulness of the 

 Dictionary. 



***** 



The following account of the history of the great 

 Oxford Dictionary is taken from the Catalogue. The 

 collection of the materials which are used in the 

 preparation of the Oxford Dictionary began in 1857 



195 



