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28 November 2011

Things found in books - an old thesaurus

I've had this old thesaurus for many years - it used to live on my desk at work. "Author's copyright edition", it says on the spine - 
The full title is "Thesaurus of English words and phrases classified and arranged so as to facilitate the expression of ideas and to assist in literary composition" and it's "by Peter Mark Roget, M.D., F.R.S., enlarged by John Lewis Roget, M.A., new edition revised and enlarged by Samuel Romilly Roget, M.A." - first edition 1852; this edition 1936; keeping it in the family!

 Nice page layout,  trying to start new pairs of words at the same place on the page, and getting the words with opposite meanings alongside -
 A card from a museum in Amsterdam -
 How the "original" thesaurus works - categories, from general to specific -
A "plan of classification" (abstract relations; space; matter; intellect; volition; affections) and a "tabular synopsis of categories" - from 1.Existence to 1000.Temple.
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2 comments:

  1. reensstitcher28 November 2011 at 13:43

    What a blast from the past. I grew up in a family where this was one of the main reference books and it was much used in our later years at school. I suspect that we even had this edition as the cover looks awfully familiar.

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  2. Cate Rose28 November 2011 at 16:54

    Roget's is one of my favorite reads, seriously. I've never seen this edition, though. I'd love to get my hands on some old books to use for collage...like most everything else they're hard to come by in my neck of the woods.

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