Antedating Quote "history is written by the victor" (1919)

[Garson O'Toole]

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 5:36 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
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> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Antedating Quote "history is written by the victor" (1919)
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> Related (unconfirmed) uses:
>
> Historic fancies‎ - Page 307
> George Sydney Smythe  1844
> Vanquished — his history written by the victors — Robespierre has left a
> memory
>
> The conspiracy of Gianluigi Fieschi: or, Genoa in the sixteenth century‎ -
> Page xxiii
> Emanuele Celesia, David H. Wheeler - Â 1866 -
> ... falsehoods so misrepresented events as to render history nearly
> impossible.
> ... courtly and salaried historians — history written by the victors.
> ...accursed."
>
> Medical history from the earliest times: a popular history of the healing art‎
> - Page 133
> Edward Theodore Withington  1894 -
> The history of the struggle has been written by the victors, who declare that
> the iconoclast emperors delighted in destroying monasteries and burning ...
>
> A standard history of Kansas and Kansans‎ - Page 355
> William Elsey Connelley -1918 -
> In Kansas the South lost, and the history of the Territory and the State has
> been written by the victors — those founding a Free State through much ..
>
> Bonnie Scotland: and what we owe her‎ - Page 61
> William Elliot Griffis - Â 1916
> ... when success is won ! With the multitude, the end ever justifies
> the means.
> The accepted history of almost all wars is that written by the victors. ...
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

Wonderful collection of citations! Thanks Stephen.

Sometimes when searching for an earlier instance of a proverb or quote
I am uncertain if a particular citation fully captures the meaning of
a phrase. As reference books move online perhaps there will be more
space to trace the evolution of quotations and proverbs by listing
additional intermediate forms and precursors.

I think this will be possible. But the economics of online resource
provision must somehow support it, and editors are already heavily
burdened I think.

Garson

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