In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle delves into the origins of a famous Shakespeare quotation ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much’ is a phrase people sometimes use in jest, especially the sort of folk who are fond of talking of heading to the nearest […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the origins of the phrase ‘dark horse’ in a forgotten nineteenth-century novel The novel The Young Duke may have been forgotten, but its author hasn’t been – even if his reputation as an author is not now as […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle delves into the literary origins of a well-known phrase The phrase ‘cloud cuckoo land’ is well known, but what are its origins? Here’s what the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says, for the term’s etymology: