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
56
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] On the issue of who should be included in the DNB, the writer seems to suggest that______
选项
A、the editors had clear rules to follow.
B、there were too many criminals in the entries.
C、the editors clearly favored benefactors.
D、the editors were irrational in their choices.
答案
D
解析
推断题。通过第三段中的有关罪犯词条的选择、第四段中有关不包含Max Miller的例子以及第五段中有关什么样的妇女应包括进去这几段文字,作者告诉读者的信息就是编辑们的选择没什么章法。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3284947.html
相关试题推荐
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
Accordingtotheconversation,anapplicationlettershould______.[originaltext
Why,youmaywonder,shouldspidersbeourfriends?Becausetheyprotectso
Why,youmaywonder,shouldspidersbeourfriends?Becausetheyprotectso
Why,youmaywonder,shouldspidersbeourfriends?Becausetheyprotectso
Why,youmaywonder,shouldspidersbeourfriends?Becausetheyprotectso
TheU.S.Constitutionrequiresthatthepresidentshouldbea______-year-old
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
随机试题
LibraryLookingupmaterialforaresearchpaperinal
Americaisasocietyinwhichchildrenhavewatched【D1】______18000televisi
下列期权中,时间价值最大的是()。A、行权价为7的看跌期权,其权利金为2,标的资产价格为8B、行权价为15的看跌期权,其权利金为2,标的资产价格为1
AustraliahasbeenunusualintheWesternworldinhavingavery【C1】______at
人工牙根据制作材料分为()A.树脂牙和金属牙 B.解剖式牙和半解剖
悬索桥最重要的构件是( )。 A、桥塔 B、主缆索 C、锚碇 D
虚喘发生的病机是A.肺肾阴虚 B.肝阴不足 C.肺气虚弱 D.肾阳衰弱
图美公司是某出版社所属的一家印刷厂,该公司按照出版社提供的文稿、图片和质量要求从
原材料供应方案选择考虑的主要因素包括()。A.原材料的品种、质量、特性
某工程需开挖土方量为1600m3,挖土机产量定额是100.0m3/台班,一天安排
最新回复
(
0
)