author

Rev. James Wood

1820–1901

A Scottish minister and editor with a gift for making reference works useful to everyday readers, he is best remembered for shaping The Nuttall Encyclopaedia and other practical literary compilations. His books helped bring quotations, definitions, and general knowledge into a compact, approachable form.

1 Audiobook

Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them

Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them

by Rev. James Wood

About the author

Born in Leith on October 12, 1820, he became a Scottish writer, editor, and Free Church minister, and studied at the University of Edinburgh. He spent most of his life in Edinburgh, where his religious work and literary interests seem to have gone hand in hand.

He is chiefly remembered as the editor of The Nuttall Encyclopaedia, a concise reference work first published around the turn of the twentieth century. He was also associated with Nuttall's Standard Dictionary and compiled a Dictionary of Quotations, showing a clear talent for organizing information in ways that ordinary readers could use.

He died on March 17, 1901. Although not a household name today, his work belongs to a long tradition of Victorian reference publishing: careful, wide-ranging, and meant to put knowledge within easy reach.