Abstracts and extracts in general and professional literature / by Archibald L. Clarke.

  • Clarke, Archibald Leycester.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Abstracts and extracts in general and professional literature / by Archibald L. Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ABSTRACTS AND EXTRACTS IN GENERAL AND PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE.^ By Archibald L. Clarke, Assistant Editor and Cata- loguer, Royal Society of Medicine. I. General Literature, The art of abstracting or extracting from literature has been long known and practised. The arguments prefixed to the poems of Milton and Pope are interesting examples of extracting from a literary point of view, and one of the best instances of the principle of abridgment in general literature is seen in Charles and Mary Lamb’s “ Tales from Shakespeare”. Sir Richard Phillips (1768-1840) is now almost forgotten, but his name long survived under the trade designation of Phillips’ Educational Manuals. He earned the qualified praise of de Morgan who said that he possessed honesty, zeal, ability, and courage, all of which he applied to teaching matters about which he knew nothing. His powers of ab- straction are well exemplified in his “ Million of Facts Charles Knight, with whom Phillips cannot be compared in literary estimation, became famous as a collector and dis- seminator of useful knowledge. This is well exemplified in his “ Penny Magazine ” and “ Half-hours with the best Authors,” 1847-48—the latter containing specimens of the literary work of about three hundred writers. The practice of filling up the odd corners of cheap journals devoted mainly to fiction, such as “Bow Bells” and the “ London Reader,” with cuttings from interesting sources ' Read before the Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association held in London, on 28 July, igio. (The first and second sections are condensed.)