Help the OED Find a Lost Book

New submitter imlepid writes "The Oxford English Dictionary is currently undergoing a complete overhaul which includes a reexamination of the 300,000+ entries and citations for those entries. Understandably for a work which is over 150 years old, some of the sources have become hard to find. One such example is a book titled 'Meanderings of Memory' by Nightlark, which is cited 49 times in the OED, including for some rare words. The OED's editorial team has appealed to the public, 'Have you seen a copy of this book?'"

Comments

which witch?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol editors

Re:which witch?

[Anonymous Coward]

My spell checker says that is perfectly OK.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A work witch"

I think you mean which

Re:Really?

[Nadaka]

I've known a few witches at work.

I've met a work witch

[Anonymous Coward]

Their work ethic is wicked.

How silly.

[Aerokii]

When your work witch is over 150 years old, you'll definitely want an overhaul.

Or retirement.

Re:How silly.

[wagnerrp]

Or you know... burn it. It's the only way to be sure.

Re:How silly.

[Aerokii]

Only if she doesn't still float- I could still potentially build a bridge out of her.

Re:How silly.

[homey of my owney]

They need to overhaul their current submission process before worrying about the rest of this.

Literally definition changes

Did they check the filing cabinet?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But Mr Dent, Meanderings of Memory has been available in the local library for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see it, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the book was on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find it."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the book didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

Re:Did they check the filing cabinet?

[maxwell demon]

Well, I tried to remember where the book is, but my memory always started to meander when I tried.

Re:Did they check the filing cabinet?

[jedidiah]

I put it on my mobile device but it managed to disappear. For some reason it pulled a 1984. I guess that's what I get for using Amazon's book reader.

Thought it would feel at home on a mobile device.

Re:Did they check the filing cabinet?

[MrLint]

Dear sir,

As this is the OED, and you are quoting HHG another British work, the line was 'torch' not flashlight.

psh...

amateurs.

Re:Did they check the filing cabinet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you've read a book. Thanks for telling us.

The lesson is --- back up your porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday it may be history.

Old Pron

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears the book is quite rare - and most likely pornographic. They should look under some 19th century mattress and see if anyone stuffed a copy there.

As a work witch

[maroberts]

..it was probably burned at the stake.

Which witch is which?

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

Have I seen that book?

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Re:Have I seen that book?

[darnkitten]

Not in OCLC, the Internet Archive or on Bookfinder. I did, however find Milestones. A Mirthful Miscellany Of Meanderings Down Memory Lane by Aldous Bob or Bob Aldous, or something. I doubt, however, judging from the title, that "revirginizing" will feature in the tome.

Re:Have I seen that book?

[vikingpower]

I doubt, however, judging from the title, that "revirginizing" will feature in the tome.

It actually will. The March 2010 update of the OED Online contains "revirginize" as a new entry. Wait for the Third Edition to be available in print. You will then be able to stroll through your living room, a hefty OED tome in your hand ( of which there is not one, BTW, but currently there are 20 ) , muttering "revirginize....revirginize..."

Irony?

[ubrgeek]

They can't remember where they left the 'Meanderings of Memory' book?

Does it even really exist?

[JDG1980]

What if "Meanderings of Memory" never existed in the first place, but was made up by sloppy 19th-century OED editors when they couldn't find a real source? It's not as if this practice is unknown...

Re:Does it even really exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was my first thought.

Many of the early contributors to the OED were volunteers. One was famously a resident of Broadmoor hospital for the criminally insane. Even the name of the missing book looks like a hint that the references were actually pulled from someone's memory.

Re:Does it even really exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

check the comments under the OED blog - there's a link to a catalog on google books which lists it

Re:Does it even really exist?

[tgd]

What if "Meanderings of Memory" never existed in the first place, but was made up by sloppy 19th-century OED editors when they couldn't find a real source? It's not as if this practice is unknown...

Maybe its like the fake roads that cartographers put into maps... anyone else who references it clearly copied the OED!

Re:Does it even really exist?

[MobyDisk]

You almost got it right: The OED itself is the copy! The creates of the OED must have stolen information from some other, older source, who put fake references in to detect it. The OED is a fraud!

Re:Does it even really exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

We did this in high school. "Must have 10 sources" or something like that. Dammit, the encyclopedia was all you really needed. It was literally impossible to find even 3 sources that made sense. We made some up. Made up names, ISBN number, the whole works. I knew the teacher was busy. I totally got away with it, kinda gives me a chuckle. I don't feel much guilt about this since it was a ridiculous requirement. I do kind of wonder, if the teacher had been told that she fell for a book reference published by "David Worthington, Chicago Press in 1953, blah, blah" would she have even admitted it?

Re:Does it even really exist?

[Spiridios]

check the comments under the OED blog - there's a link to a catalog on google books which lists it

Would that I could mod you up. Here's the catalog. It's entirely possible that it's also made up, but seems less likely.

Re: Does it even really exist?

[forkazoo]

Well, if you had to cite a source, but all you had was your own recollection that you had heard the word, 'Meanderings of Memory' is pretty much the perfect name for it. It's even possible that within the community of people working on it, it was a well understood practice. Like giving a directing credit to Alan Smithee for a film. (For a guy who never existed, he sure was prolific!)

Re:Does it even really exist?

[maxwell demon]

Might it be possible that they got the reference from OED?

Re:Does it even really exist?

[vikingpower]

Possible, yes. I looked it up in Vol. XX ( the one with the entire list of references ) of the OED. It simply says "Meanderings of Memory" by 'Nightlark' [ date ]". Google books may have scanned the digital version of the OED ( which I do not have at hand here, only at work, can not check before the tomorrow ). If so, then we may be in the presence of a hoax. Moreover, the Latin citation in the Google books entry is of a dubious level, like the one that hot-headed juvenile would-be poets produce. It says, more or less: "Why, nightingale, do tears please you more than they do me ?"

Re:Does it even really exist?

[dwye]

Of course, by your logic, there are also numerous copies of The Necronomicon, as well as at least two of the Al Asif (the Arabic, untranslated source of The Necronomicon) in various libraries. Just to extend the joke, most have been borrowed by a member of the Whateley family and are years overdue. I also understand that librarians have added a few copies of The King In Yellow (the mythical play, not the collection of stories about it) around the country. In a few years, expect to see works by Nickolaus Flamel (sp?) start showing up, as Harry Potter fans get in charge of things.

Librarians with too much time on there hands leave all sorts of in-jokes around.

Re:Does it even really exist?

[Jeremy Erwin]

The OED was first published in 1889, and those catalogues date from 1854.

Re:Does it even really exist?

[ChrisMaple]

My favorite reference, which I see occasionally in serious books, is "Personal communication". Usually it references a letter from some named individual, but it could just as well mean "some guy I met in a bar."

Busted!

[BrentWM]

'Meanderings of Memory' was somebody's code for "I made it up."

I'll Check

[HtR]

Let me check. It might be sitting on my desk.

Umm - this might take a couple of hours ...

Could Be Worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Countless number of books lost forever when the Library of Alexandria was burnt down.

Re:Could Be Worse

[dwye]

Countless number of books lost forever when the Library of Alexandria was burnt down.

Which time?

No help for the OED until they change pricing

[lsommerer]

I would love to use the OED occasionally and wouldn't mind paying to do so, but who can afford to spend $295 per year for a subscription?

I have to assume that they are not all idiots and that they actually have some subscribers at that price point, but I can't imagine that that model makes the most money possible. I want to look up maybe one word a month, and I would be willing to pay to do so, but I can't pay $295 a year (or even $29.95 per month).

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[hedwards]

The unabridged OED is pretty much just for libraries and research institutions. It's not just a matter of price, previous to them coming up with an online edition, the books took up like 3m of shelf space. And many of the additional words in there are used once or twice in the entire body of known literature.

If it's not in the largest single book version of the OED, you're not likely to encounter a word that isn't in it. Now, if you do, then paying for the full unabridged version might make sense.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

If a word is used only once or twice is it really a word? When people qunadet, I don't judge them. However when I qunadet, people do judge me. Which page will qunadet be on in the next OED edition?

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[Anubis IV]

A word being used once or twice in a body of literature might indicate that the word was in use around the area where the author worked and may have even been a common term at that time and place. The word may no longer be useful to us in everyday speech, but it may be useful if someone were to read the works of others from around that time and place who happened to use the word in personal journals or the like that historians are later trying to make sense of.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well ... there is the *compact* edition which contains the whole of the dictionary in a "manageable" size (either two volumes in folio or just one for
the last edition). They just rescaled the text either 25% or 15% in order to contain the number of pages and, yes ... it comes with a magnifying
glass (but you end up needing something more like a microscope, actually).

Brand new it is not cheap (approx 180GBP, if I am not mistaken), but they can be found in second hand bookshops if one is lucky: I got mine
for less than 20 pounds, actually.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[TheCarp]

> it comes with a magnifying glass (but you end up needing something more like a microscope, actually).

You do maybe. We had this edition when I was in school, printed at 25%. It was small, but I didn't even need the magnifying glass, I could always read it unaided. In fact, after learning this, and that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was on Project Guttenberg, I really annoyed my teacher by reading it online and bringing printed chapters to class, printed in the smallest font I could read off the laser printer in the computer room. She insisted that I shouldn't fool around and there was no way i could rad that.... so I happily demonstrated that I could, indeed read it... which she still didn't like, but didn't have much more to say about.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[hedwards]

As Anubis said, it might mean that it's a regional term, or that it's slang of the day or that it was commonly used, but not typically in print. The OED itself is mostly composed of words that you don't typically encounter. If you typically encountered most of those words, you probably wouldn't need to look them up.

Even a more modest dictionary which only aims to contain the commonly used words is likely to have far more words than what a typical person is likely to come into contact with on a regular basis.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[synaptik]

If a word is used only once [...] is it really a word?

Yes... it is a hapax legomenon.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[lsommerer]

I've been this close to purchasing both the compact edition and the full edition (used). My point was that they need a more accessible online pricing structure for people who occasionally "need" access to The Dictionary. It just seems so strange to me that I can't spend $20.00 for access to 20 words or something like that.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

The unabridged OED is pretty much just for libraries and research institutions.

This is true, though a lot of people have access to the OED through a local library and don't know it. Lots of urban public libraries also subscribe to it, as do a decent number of library consortia, and these often allow you to use it online from home. And of course many, maybe most, academic libraries have access to it. I'm a Chicagoan and can use it online through a link at the Chicago Public Library's home page (once I provide my library card number, of course). It's a great resource to have available.

It's not just a matter of price, previous to them coming up with an online edition, the books took up like 3m of shelf space.

They used to print a two-volume Compact Edition, with the print reduced to a tiny size and a magnifying glass included. You can find the 1970s compact reprint of the 1933 OED in a lot of bookstores for not too much money -- mine cost ~$40 in about 1998. The print on the compact version is tiny, but into my late 30s I could read it unaided if I was in good light. Now I depend on the magnifying glass, but it's still useful and fun to browse.

The older edition isn't current, obviously, but it's still useful in sussing out the odd meanings that a common word had in 1638, or finding a word that was last used by Ben Jonson or in a charter issued during the reign of Henry VII. That's really the strength of the OED. There are much simpler sources for finding out what a word means today, but if you have any sort of historical or antiquarian interest in the language then you need to OED.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[idji]

if you were doing a PhD in the history of philosophy or modern thought, you would pay such an investment, so you could understand those 16th and 17th century works that you are reading.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[ffflala]

Chances are your local library has a subscription to it, and you can access it from your library's online resources portal with your library card # and password, all for the cost of getting a library account set up.

Last time I checked the purchase price, a single copy of the full-text print version of the 2d edition (about twenty volumes) sold for around $11k, I believe. It might have been $18k, it has been a while. I've seen used copies of the two-volume, small print OED (requires a magnifying glass to read, but is complete) for around $100-$150. I believe its cost is justified by the nature of the beast -- it aims to be a comprehensive dictionary, a work that encompasses every word of the English language.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[vikingpower]

The unabridged OED is pretty much just for libraries and research institutions

FAIL. I, being neither a library nor a research institution, possess the print version of the unabridged OED. ( My girlfriend, after years of hesitation, has begun using it for her Ethnology studies, too. At work, alas, I must use the digital version. Colleagues have begun to come and consult it. My profession: a software architect.... ) Yes, it DOES take up 2+ m of shelf space. It is my proudest and most precious possession ( "precious" not measured in financial terms here ). Yes, I spent close to € 1000 plus € 50+ on a taxi ride to take the six boxes of heavy volumes home. So what ? It will accompany me to the grave like no other work of learning can, or will, or may. Giving the XX volumes a definitive place in my living room and library was one of the greatest triumphs of my life.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[iggymanz]

the Kindle edition is less than $50 for all 2110 pages. Note on Amazon's web page: "Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download"

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[ChrisMaple]

I have a friend who bought the compact edition late in the print run. He said the plates had been badly worn, resulting in much of the text being barely readable.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[obtuse]

This was one of the best christmas gifts I ever got from my wife. It's the single volume, recently printed, nine pages to one, on onionskin paper. It is a beautiful thing. To they guy who said the plates had worn in the recent printings, I see no such effect, and mine is from the early 2000's. Used copies of the compact OED (compact is the complete 2nd edition) can be had for less than a hundred dollars.

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[carndearg]

Given the office I'm sitting in and the job I do this is a question I encounter from time to time. I can't comment on pricing for obvious reasons, but I can offer an alternative that may help some of you.
Many public libraries purchase OED Online subscriptions which they make available to their users for free. All you need is your library card number to log in and use it as much as you like. In addition most educational institutions have site licences for use by their people in the same way. It may not help you if your library or institution doesn't have a subscription, but it's worth a look. http://public.oed.com/how-to-subscribe/does-my-library-subscribe/

Re:No help for the OED until they change pricing

[Anonymous Coward]

s/libraries/libraries, shitcocks, /

'Meanderings of Memory' by Nightlark

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

A famous literary hoax, of Borgesian dimensions.

One might adduce as much, from the enigmatic title of the purported work, and the pseudonymous attribution of authorship.

In fact, this was the product of several Oxford dons, in the generation before Tolkien - who expanded on the academic chicanery of spurious reference work by creating an entire cosmos, populated with libraries of such.

Now, let us turn to the Voynich manuscript, and the Dictionary of the Khazars...

Re:'Meanderings of Memory' by Nightlark

[macbeth66]

Perhaps they were doMs...

Translated from Latin, the epigraph says something like "why should Philomel fancy my tears?"

Perhaps a little S&M?

Re:'Meanderings of Memory' by Nightlark

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Well. Oxford. They all bottom, from reputation.

Re:'Meanderings of Memory' by Nightlark

[Anonymous Coward]

A 19th century Easter egg in the OED.
Rebellious literary boffins chiding us from the past.

Re:'Meanderings of Memory' by Nightlark

[maxwell demon]

IN BEFORE APK

Yes, of course, now I see it. They should just remove the line

meanderings-of-memory.book 127.0.0.1

from their hosts file, then they'll find the book.

What for it...

[macbeth66]

How do you know she is a witch?

Sir Bedevere: There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
Peasant 1: Are there? Oh well, tell us.
Sir Bedevere: Tell me. What do you do with witches?
Peasant 1: Burn them.
Sir Bedevere: And what do you burn, apart from witches?
Peasant 1: More witches.
Peasant 2: Wood.
Sir Bedevere: Good. Now, why do witches burn?
Peasant 3: ...because they're made of... wood?
Sir Bedevere: Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?
Peasant 1: Build a bridge out of her.
Sir Bedevere: But can you not also build bridges out of stone?
Peasant 1: Oh yeah.
Sir Bedevere: Does wood sink in water?
Peasant 1: No, no, it floats!... It floats! Throw her into the pond!
Sir Bedevere: No, no. What else floats in water?
Peasant 1: Bread.
Peasant 2: Apples.
Peasant 3: Very small rocks.
Peasant 1: Cider.
Peasant 2: Gravy.
Peasant 3: Cherries.
Peasant 1: Mud.
Peasant 2: Churches.
Peasant 3: Lead! Lead!
King Arthur: A Duck.
Sir Bedevere: ...Exactly. So, logically...
Peasant 1: If she weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood.
Sir Bedevere: And therefore...
Peasant 2: ...A witch!

( sorry, so sorry, I couldn't resist )

Re:What for it...

[Quirkz]

"What for it"?

Wait are we whatting for?

Maybe it was The Madman

[kruhft]

I recently picked up "The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary" and this post made me think of the the story. A quick check gives a time frame of 150 years ago, and maybe everyone that works at the OED isn't familiar with the history of Dr. Minor. If he truly was a "Madman", I wouldn't put it beyond him to make up sources for some of his many contributions.

Ye olde Troll

[ThatsNotPudding]

This might be one of the world's oldest examples of book trolling!


...other than every religion's grand accomplishments, of course.

LMGTFY?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/catablogger/8717819652/in/photostream/

Translation of the Latin phrase

[x_man]

For those wanting to know what the Latin phrase underneath translates to:

Cur potius lacrimae tibi mi Philomela placebant?
Why do tears please you more, My Philomela?

From Wikipedia: Philomela or Philomel (Ancient Greek: ) is a minor figure in Greek mythology and is frequently invoked as a direct and figurative symbol in literary, artistic, and musical works in the Western canon.

Re:Translation of the Latin phrase

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the "original" catalog entry
http://books.google.com/books?id=rjQIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=1852+Nightlark&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-JuKUa2EPKn5iwLW1YHoDw&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAg

Re:Translation of the Latin phrase

[chad_r]

Someone had an interesting comment in the New Yorker article:

I see that you refer to "Philomena" in your comment rather than the "Philomela" of the text. St. Philomena was a virgin martyr whose times and story are roughly contemporaneous to the composition of the book. Possibly there is some connection to the "revirginization" quotes within the lost text. In addition, the tears may refer to the liquid reputed to have sprung from Philomena's statue in Italy in the 19th century...

Also, there is more than one reference on the net. There is a Flickr image from a Sotheby's auction in 1854, which was just uploaded yesterday.

Here are the OED words where the work is cited

[Anonymous Coward]

chapelled, ppl. a.
re-, prefix
scarf, n.1
tribe, v.
tribunal, n. (a.)

okay, okay, Jeezzz!

[Anonymous Coward]

I found it. Can't anyone use a friggin' search engine? Anyway, get your favourite client and start the download
(and please remember to keep it going until the ratio is about 3.0x - 'k?)

039C817BA50131E227DC4A96529F9DB13CCACD73

Portobello Road

[Anonymous Coward]

Portobello road, Portobello road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed.
Anything and everything a chap can unload
Is sold off the barrow in Portebello road.

http://www.portobelloroad.co.uk/

I remember that book!

[boojumbadger]

I threw it on the fire when we burnt Alexandria.

Re: Perhaps a little S&M?

[Anonymous Coward]

Translated from Latin, the epigraph says something like "why should Philomel fancy my tears?"

I believe that's the Roman equivalent of "What, me worry?"

Cyclic....

[Lumpy]

Someone create the book and have it cite the OED... if you are able to make it look old enough to pass it will make their heads explode....

Re:Cyclic....

[iggymanz]

No need to create the whole book. why I've already fabricated enough relevant quotes from it on wikipedia.

F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else immediately find themselves thinking of F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre and his fake reviews of lost silent films?

I'm not bringing it back ...

[PPH]

.... to the library unless someone gives me a break on 150 years of late fees.

Arnold?

[LeadSongDog]

I've got to consider Oxford's own Mathew Arnold (1822-1888) as a plausible candidate for "Nightingale". His "The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems" (1849), and "Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems" (1852) were published under the pseudonym "A.", but they certainly seem characteristic. Odd that he hasn't been made mention of. http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/strayed-reveller http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172862 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/matthew-arnold

Re:Arnold?

[LeadSongDog]

Drat! That's "Matthew Arnold", not "Mathew Arnold"

Victorian Gay Curiosa?

[Anonymous Coward]

The latin refers to Philomela as masculine.

Historically she is identified as being the "princess of Athens". The general depiction is that Philomela, after being raped and mutilated (tounge cut out so that she could not tell of the rape) by her sister's husband, obtains her revenge and is transformed into a nightingale. Because of the violence associated with the myth, the song of the nightingale is often depicted or interpreted as a sorrowful lament.

The author uses the pseudonym Nightlark which was/is? slang for a gay man, one who sings sweetly only under cover of darkness.

Would suggest looking to scholars of gay victorian literature Re: where are collections located.

Does anyone have a list of the words for which "Meanderings of Memory" is used as a cite?

Re:Victorian Gay Curiosa?

[LeadSongDog]

The list of 49 words is available by querying oed.com, e.g. http://www.oed.com/search?case-insensitive=true&f_0=-+Quotation+Title&nearDistance=1&ordered=false&q_0=Meanderings+of+Memory&scope=ENTRY

Re:Victorian Gay Curiosa?

[LeadSongDog]

Here's the first half of the cited quotations, since oed hasn't bothered to consolidate them:

"The Chapelled templer."
"Who can trim a cock~abundy, turn a rod with him?"
"Care for your couchward path."
"Day-drowsiness--and night's arousing power."
"Dyke-cloistered Taddington, of cold intense."
"The dikeside watch when Midnight-feeders stray."
"In the droop ash shade."
"An heiress doughy-like and dump."
"'Tis noted down--Epistled to the Duke."
"Matter to sustain The staggering extemporizer's pain."
"The fancy-grazing herds of freedom's pen."
"Flambeaued folly of the long procession."
"Air coloured, scarcely carnate, or a flesh."
"Galls them no more their foodlessness or fag."
"Fluttering as the mantle's fringy rim."
"Where full-dug foragers at evening meet In Cow-bell concert."
"One is the sculptor, of the statue nice, Or Gigantomachies of rock and ice."
"With a giddy foot and goal-ward rush."
"Hag of the hearthward cringe and tripod stool."
"A heathen lamp supplies With meagre beam his Idol-anchored eyes."
"A margin stone I crave Inscriptionless, or chiselled by the wave."
"I the mattress spread, And equal lay whatever lumps the bed."
"Coins that were tinkled, ever shook In pouch of peacelessness."
"With art's refinement he would..rape the soul."
"O too rebrutalized! oh too bereaved!"

Re:Victorian Gay Curiosa?

[vikingpower]

This is growing interesting. A quick, sequential read of the quotations seems to betray, indeed, a single author's idiosyncracies..

Re:Victorian Gay Curiosa?

[vikingpower]

Would you please reproduce the other half of the quotations ? Thanks !

Re:Victorian Gay Curiosa?

[O-Deka-K]

And here's the rest:

"Oh freddled gruntbuggly"
"thy micturations are to me"
"As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee"
"Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes"
"And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles"
"Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!"

Re:Victorian Gay Curiosa?

[frisket]

From which it should be clear that it is a book of poems they are looking for, not prose.

--
A Copy of Verses kept in the Cabinet, and only shewn to a few Friends, is like a Virgin much sought after and admired; but when printed and published, is like a common Whore, whom any body may purchase for half a Crown (Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects)

A likely place?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Broadmoor prison.. ex prisoner's possessions - if they keep them as long as 150 years!

Finishing the 49

[LeadSongDog]

"Alone reliefless in thy cold distress."
"Where that cosmetic..Shall e'er revirginize that brow's abuse."
"Raw November's rheumatizing grass."
"If a thought Should cream the blood in sanctuaried court."
"He crowned his head but with another cap Than Cardinal'sâ"for that he wants no Sap."
"Yon vermined Sarcophage."
"Scarf-like and ethereally slight."
"The brain will scavage and the breast unstuff."
"He looked submission with a shoeward eye."
"We..Rambled such river sides and templed lands."
"So thence uprooted with transplanter care, In other soil it scents another air."
"Her nature may with thine be tribed."
"Tribunalled judge, he weds the weaker cause, Holds sternly up as he lays down the laws."
"The belted blouse Of velvet black, and closely-fitting trouse."
"A thing unmental, mannerless and crude."
"If bigotted, or most unbusy herd, O'er stocked with time and talent, were preferred."
"The brain [it] will scavage and the breast unstuff."
"Yon vermined Sarcophage."
"She was not vulgar-viewed, her thinkings took The selfsame tenor."
"Vain and virtueless and warmthless grown."
"The wen-necked women."
"With cur-like whinge to such soft cutting whip."
"The widthless road."