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A Smaller Classical Dictionary

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From the

This little Classical Dictionary is, in the main, a reprint of Dr Smith's Dictionary published many years ago. But a considerable amount of revision has been made; few of the longer articles appear exactly in the form in which they originally appeared; and a great deal of new matter has been introduced in order to bring the work up to date, as far as was consistent with the Publisher's plan of including in Everyman's Library a short and concise companion to the classics. Armed with this book, the average reader will have little difficulty in understanding classical allusions as they appear, not only in standard English writers, but also in the the periodical literature of our time.

644 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1931

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for Paul Magnussen.
206 reviews28 followers
April 30, 2018
I love this book: it fits into a capacious pocket, and it’s the ideal companion for reading anything with classical allusions, as for instance Simon Raven.

It is, according to the Preface, in the main a reprint of Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of many years ago, with a considerable amount of revision (what Dr. Smith’s first name may have been is not specified, here or elsewhere, but was presumably William).

My edition (which I inherited from my uncle who was killed in WWII) is a 1942 reprint of the 1937 revision “necessitated by the work of modern scholars”.

The contents are as follows:

Preface
The Chief Greek Writers and Artists
The Chief Greek Philosophers
The Chief Latin Writers
Patristic Literature — Greek and Roman
Some Dates in Greek History
Some Dates in Roman History
List of Roman Emperors
List of some Famous Classical Scholars
Some Standard Books Recommended to Students of Classical Antiquity
To the Student of Roman History

Dictionary

Illustrations

One amusing feature, that you wouldn’t see in a modern book, is that there is no hesitation in telling the reader what the best edition of this or that work is.

The illustrations comprise some black and white photos of coins, statues and architecture. I remember that in my teens the photo of Praxiteles’s head of Hermes filled me with a desire to see it in person.
Profile Image for James Violand.
1,268 reviews75 followers
June 13, 2014
How do I grade this, it's a dictionary for Pete's sake. It is good for short descriptions, but often is missing terms found in larger dictionaries concerning Western antiquity.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews

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