[Ads-l] Request Help Verifying Quote: Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

According to "The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations" the remark
in the subject line appeared in the introduction of the book "Common
Misquotations" (1934) by Hesketh Pearson. I would like to verify this.

WorldCat states that there are 8 editions of "Common Misquotations"
held in 86 libraries. If you can access this book and you wish to help
then please send me an email off list. The 1934 edition would be
great; the 1978 reprint edition would also be ok.

Below is a 1946 citation from an Irish newspaper which provides a
longer excerpt:

[ref] 1946 August 18, Sunday Independent, There's Method in
Misquotation by Thomas Kelly, Sign of Erudition, Quote Page 9, Column
6, Dublin, Ireland. (Newspapers_com) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
An authority on the subject put his argument thus:
"Misquotation is in fact the pride and privilege of the learned. A
widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason
that he has read too widely. He can retain the thought, but seldom the
structure of a phrase. There are exceptions, of course--Dr. Johnson
was one--but it is broadly true to say that a person who wanders
through the domain of literature cannot remember in detail any
particular part of it."
[End excerpt]

Nigel Rees indicates that Pearson's book also contains this
interesting remark: "Misquotations are the only quotations that are
never misquoted." Maybe this statement is in the introduction.

The goal is to obtain a complete citation with title, author, chapter
title, page number, publisher, publication year, and copyright year.
The information can be double-checked if you create scans or pictures
of the pages displaying this metadata together with scans showing the
target text. This may seem to be overkill, but inaccurate (or
fabricated) citations are the bane of quotation research.

Garson

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