In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the surprising origins of that ‘a lie is halfway round the world …’ quotation ‘A lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’ The line well-known, and has itself made its way […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle delves into the misconceptions surrounding one of the most famous pronouncements on patriotism Samuel Johnson (1709-84) was a curious man. The one thing everyone knows him for, compiling the first English dictionary, is something he didn’t do: dictionaries of […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the literary history of a distinctive word During the eight years I’ve been running this blog and combing every book, website, and trivia list I can find for eye-catching literature-related facts, one of the most satisfying I’ve discovered […]