The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th edition)

摘要

Some reference books seem to have been around for ever, certainly the ones we have used most frequently over many years. In fact The Oxford Classical Dictionary (henceforth OCD) was first published when I was five years old. How did students and scholars manage before that? There used to be plenty of dictionaries and encyclopedias of course: indeed, I still use my 1902 edition of Lempriere for quick reference to more obscure names from classical literature or mythology. The copies of OCD that sustained my school and then university studies would have been of the first edition; a second edition appeared in 1970. A major modernisation came with the third edition of 1996, itself revised after only seven years in 2003 (RR 2003/352) and now followed in comparatively short order by a fourth edition.