Oxford last published this work, which is the largest of its many collections of quotations, in 1996. It has added more than 2,000 new entries, bringing the total to 20,000. Approximately 2,500 authors are represented.The book is arranged alphabetically by author. Page layout is clear, with name ranges in the header, entry names in bold type, and numbered quotations, which makes for easy lookups from the index and cross-references. Birth and death dates and a career brief (e.g., "British Whig politician") are given. Cross-references between entries, including page and quotation number, lead the reader to all related quotations. New authors in the fifth edition include Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm, Bill Clinton ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman"), Hillary Rodham Clinton, Helen Fielding ("I will not sulk about having no boyfriend," from Bridget Jones's Diary), Bill Gates, actress Helen Mirren, and Fay Weldon.
Twenty special categories, interfiled among authors and set off in boxes, group selected quotations by type. Examples are advertising slogans, misquotations, newspaper headlines and leaders ("Dewey defeats Truman"), political slogans and songs, film lines ("Here's looking at you, kid"), catchphrases, epitaphs, opening lines, and toasts. The editorial origins of the book are particularly evident here, with many ads for British products and lines from ad campaigns in England and Ireland. Quotes from sources not attributable to an author can be found under headings such as Ballads, The Book of Common Prayer, Nursery rhymes, Proverbs, and The Talmud.
Quotes in foreign languages are followed by English translations, but many from foreign-language speakers are only presented in English, with a note about the source and translator. For instance, of 14 quotes from Flaubert, only one is given first in French. Character names are included for dialogue lines from a play or opera. Information on context is provided if it is needed to appreciate the words. Following the quote from Malvina Reynolds' song "Little Boxes," for example, we learn that it described the tract houses in the hills to the south of San Francisco. Source information for each quotation includes title or type of work (e.g., letter, speech) and date. Apocryphal and attributed statements are so noted.
An eight-page thematic index aids in identifying a dozen or more sayings in each of 44 categories, such as marriage, politics, and television. This section is a nod at the many references (including several from Oxford) that arrange quotations entirely by subject or theme, rather than by author. Such a scheme is particularly useful when a quotation does not contain a keyword directly related to its meaning and thus cannot be identified by means of a keyword index. However, unless the reader is looking for something in one of the few categories on offer here, this index won't be terribly useful. For example, if one wanted to find quotations on mathematics, which is not a category in the thematic index, the only option is to use the volume's keyword index, which means that relevant quotations that do not contain the word mathematics will not be found. A voracious quotation consumer will want to have alternative titles on hand that fully utilize the topical approach.
The thorough source documentation and cross-referencing, coupled with the large number of well-chosen entries, make this a useful purchase for almost every library. It will be especially welcome for its coverage of the last decade, because the last edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Little, Brown), which is of similar breadth and depth, was published in 1992.
