Quite Interesting – Interesting Literature

More Misinformation and Misconceptions

In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reviews a forty-year-old book debunking various widely held beliefs

Last year, I reviewed a fascinating book, The Dictionary of Misinformation, written by a professor of English named Tom Burnam and published in 1975. Although it’s now out of print, you can pick up a second-hand copy of it online for a few quid (my copy cost me less than £2.50 including postage). And I’d strongly recommend doing so.

Sir Thomas Browne: The QI of His Day?

He is credited with coining dozens of new words which are still in common use. He died on his birthday. Some of his writing was first published without his permission. His works, when first published in the seventeenth century, proved hugely successful and influential. This description could easily fit William Shakespeare, but it also fits a relatively unsung hero of literature, Sir Thomas Browne.