In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reviews Tom Burnam’s little-known dictionary of misinformation
Joan of Arc wasn’t French. Alexander Graham Bell didn’t invent the telephone. Winston Churchill didn’t coin the phrase ‘iron curtain’. The ‘grey’ in ‘greyhound’ has nothing to do with the colour. The Wright Brothers weren’t the first aviators to build a heavier-than-air flying craft. Contrary to the title of a famous film, Krakatoa is actually west of Java.
This blog began life in 2012, largely because I’ve always been attracted to such fallacies, misconceptions, urban legends, and old wives’ tales, especially those relating to my chosen profession (not to mention my hobby – and dare I say it, life), literature.