首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as
admin
2013-01-10
83
问题
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries will want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers. Yet in 10 years’ time a revised version of the whole caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade.
When Dr Nicholls wrote to The Spectator in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions. (Well, she had written to "other quality newspapers" too.) As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn’t file copy on time; some who did sent too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr Nicholls.
There remains the dinner-party game of who’s in, who’s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr. John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in, Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy (the author of Christie’s entry in Missing Persons) notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy (he had tried to escape by ship to America).
It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known.
Of Hugo of Bury St. Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose date of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments: "Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility". Then there had to be more women, too (12 percent, against the original DBN’s 3), such as Roy Strong’s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks: "Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory." It doesn’t seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed (such as Merlin) and even managed to give thanks to J. W. Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote, "except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is no trace of J. W. Clerke."
Crippen was absent from the DNB ______.
选项
A、because he escaped to the U.S.
B、because death sentence had been abolished
C、for reasons not clarified
D、because of the editors’ mistake
答案
C
解析
第三段谈到传记人物选择的不严肃性,Crippen没有被编入名人录的原因只提到:“But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught…”这只是争论,并没有说明原因,故选C。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/epTO777K
0
研究生英语学位课统考(GET)
相关试题推荐
Ingeneral,matterswhichlieentirelywithinstatebordersarethe______concernofstategovernments.(2013年北京航空大学考博试题)
Agoodteachermustknowhowto______hisstudentstoworkhardatthesubjectheteaches.
Sometimespatientssufferingfromseverepaincanbehelpedby"drugs"thataren’treallydrugsatall______sugarpillsthatco
Howmuchpaindoanimalsfeel?Thisisaquestionwhichhascausedendlesscontroversy.Opponentsofbiggameshooting,forexam
Averyimportantworldproblemistheincreasingnumberofpeoplewhoactuallyinhabitthisplanet.Thelimitedamountoflanda
Giventheadvantageofelectronicmoney,youmightthinkthatweshouldmovequicklytothecashlesssocietyinwhichallpaymen
【M1】Mostpeoplewoulddescribewaterlikeacolorlessliquid.【M2】Theywouldknowthatinverycoldconditionsitbecomesasolid
Specializationcanbeseenasaresponsetotheproblemofanincreasingaccumulationofscientificknowledge.Bysplittingupt
Inspiteof"endlesstalkofdifference",Americansocietyisanamazingmachineforhomogenizingpeople.Thereis"thedemoc
Thereareincreasinglyfraughtrelationshipsthatadultsarehavingwithchildren—inallwalksoflife,fromthepoliceandpoli
随机试题
根据《关于加强证券经纪业务管理的规定》,证券公司应当建立健全绩效考核制度,下列表述中,错误的有()。 Ⅰ.绩效考核和激励不应仅与客户开户数挂钩 Ⅱ.绩效考核和激励不应仅与客户交易量挂钩 Ⅲ.客户投诉的情况下不作为绩效考核的重要内容
IEEE802.11定义了_______。
A.伤后彻底清创、改善局部循环B.使用破伤风抗毒素中和游离毒素C.控制和解除痉挛、预防窒息D.给予大剂量青霉素,抑制破伤风杆菌治疗破伤风的关键措施是
19岁患者,近半个月来感觉右上前牙唇面有一龋洞,遇冷热酸甜敏感,无自发痛最适合的修复材料是
治疗耳聋虚证,应选用以上哪组腧穴为主()治疗耳鸣实证,应选用以上哪组腧穴为主()
某企业工会代表全体职工与该企业签订了集体合同。该集体合同自何时起生效?
证券公司向客户收取佣金的最低标准是A股每笔交易()。
把道德说成圣人立法,在很大程度上背离了道德。正如恩格斯所说的“没有爱情的婚姻是不道德的”中的不道德,恰恰是封建伦理中极力宣扬的“道德”。而这种所谓道德的阶级性,这种称谓意识形态的道德,只不过是伪道德。并不能证明道德在不用的阶级那里有不同的性质。从以上文字推
一块木料,能不能用,怎样使用,舍弃什么,不是用嘴说,也不是用眼看,更不是凭“老经验”去推断下结论——权威只有一个,就是用尺子量一量,用墨线校一校,这就是“匠人规则”。匠人们之所以令人肃然起敬,源于他们对工作一丝不苟,始终遵循“尺子最有发言权”这一准则。
《反分裂国家法》
最新回复
(
0
)