Re: Was Belittling Humanity a Common Objective of HPL, REH, CAS?
Posted by:
Dale Nelson (IP Logged)
Date: 20 September, 2023 03:01PM
Kipling Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm just a dabbler, but the position taken therein
> by Sophocles against "might makes right" is very
> poignant because of what finally happened to him.
> I do have a copy of Charles Anthon's 1841
> Classical Dictionary, certainly one of the
> all-time most monumental feats of scholarship,
> like Johnson's dictionary. Anthon set himself to
> improve upon the first such work, which was by
> Lempriere.
The local university has been discarding many of its good books. My prizes include the 1950s Times Atlas of the World (5 volumes, elephant folios) and the Dictionary of National Biography, possibly the most browsable books in the English language. The DNBs were free. One volume was missing and three or four late volumes had evidently not been bought. I was able to get all of the missing volumes for about $50. The Atlases were 25c a volume as I recall. Also got a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, which I gave away. Other works of interest have been some folklore volumes -- for free. A fun catch was a 1945 volume of Who's Who (the British reference book), about 3000 pages, with entries for E. R. Eddison, Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers, Arthur Machen, &c. as I recall without getting up to check.
My point is that libraries are discarding some of their greatest books because "it's all online now" and "those books weren't used." This is a pity for library users of the future, who, I fear, will find fewer and fewer books from pre-woke times. But it can be a great opportunity for scholarly individuals.
I thought possibly your Classical Dictionary was such a book.