Words Fail Us (But Not Them, Clearly)

If you like British history and scholarly biography, it’s time to clear some space in the library, and possibly invest in some reinforced shelving as well: The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is ready for shipping. Speaking of which, you may want to make that parcel post, since the collection weighs in at 280 pounds, with 60 volumes containing a thousand pages each. The project, which chronicles the lives of the great (and not-so-great) men and women of Great Britain over the last 1,000 years or so, was 12 years in the making, and more than 10,000 authors are represented in its pages.