Fact, Fancy, and Fable

Fact, Fancy, and Fable, by H. F. Reddall, is the title of a useful hand-book of reference, prepared on the same plan as Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, though the scope of this volume is much wider than that of Brewer's. The work is designed to fill a middle place between the large cyclopedias and the numerous reference books devoted to special branches of information. The plan of the volume embraces the consideration of a wide variety of topics, such as personal...
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Fact, Fancy, and Fable, by H. F. Reddall, is the title of a useful hand-book of reference, prepared on the same plan as Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, though the scope of this volume is much wider than that of Brewer's. The work is designed to fill a middle place between the large cyclopedias and the numerous reference books devoted to special branches of information. The plan of the volume embraces the consideration of a wide variety of topics, such as personal sobriquets, familiar phrases, popular appellations, geographical nicknames, literary pseudonyms, mythological characters, red-letter days, political slang, contractions and abbreviations, technical terms, foreign words and phrases, Americanisms, etc.

It might seem a hopeless task to undertake to offer within the limits of a single volume information on so great a variety of topics, but by a judicious system of condensation, the author has succeeded in treating all subjects with a fullness quite sufficient for the purpose of the general reader who seeks information on the obscure references and allusions which are met in his daily reading. To show that the treatment of the more important subjects is by no means meager, it may be stated that Atlantis, for instance, has a page devoted to it; Casper Hauser, four pages; Christmas, two pages; Hallowe'en, two and a half pages; The Man of the Iron Mask, five pages; Junius, nine pages; Moon Hoax, one page; Thanksgiving, one and a half; The Wandering Jew, five pages; Easter Eggs, one page. In many cases a terse paragraph supplies all the needed information, as in Amen Corner, April Fool's Day, Banbury Cakes, Barber's Pole, Bounty-jumper, Caucus, Chalking the Door, Dark Horse, Fool Bible, Good Wine needs no Bush, In the Soup, Kitchen Cabinet, Salt River, Tinker's Dam, Worth a Jew's Eye, and hundreds of others.

In the matter of geographical nicknames and political nomenclature the book surpasses in fullness all its rivals. Many sayings, such as Between the Devil and the Deep Sea, Angel Gabriel Riots, Gladstone's Umbrella, Spellbinders, Cain of America, Gossamer Days, California Column, Cockerel Church, and numerous others on which similar works are silent, are satisfactorily touched upon.