Member: fraxi

hi fraxi, thanks for the compliment and adding my library, you have a very enviable collection yourself! I hope you don't mind but I'm scouring it for (yet more) new books to try and find.
I see you read and enjoyed suspicions of mr whicher, I'm just about to start it myself for our book club. I've heard nothing but good things about it.

posted by yosarian at 4:26 pm (EST) on Jul 14, 2009

Hey fraxi!

Did you make it to the top of Ulysses? I sure didn't! Maybe next time. I really hope when we finally get around to Infinite Jest early next year, that you'll read that along with us too, as it's easily, besides Les Miserables, my favorite book of all time.

Best,
Brent

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 1:36 pm (EST) on May 18, 2009

Hey there sexy I hope you're interested in more than just my books!

xxxooo "Lola"

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 3:28 pm (EST) on Aug 24, 2008

Glad you liked the firstpost piece. Then there's BURMA (be undressed ready my angel), not to mention EGYPT (eager to grab your pretty tits). Hey-ho. Simpler days.

JG

posted by abecedary at 6:13 am (EST) on Aug 1, 2008

F&H are very good in their way and for their time they were the best thing on offer, and as such gutted - often without necessary checking - by the then on-going 1st edn of the OED. And they are, of course, the basis of Partridge whose initial commission was to update them. But my researches have sent me to do that checking - and there are serious problems. Details are optiose, just don't trust them _too_ far as regards the accuracy of the cited mnaterial.

As regards the New Partridge....mmmm. The main editor is a great friend and I am loathe to make a negative criticism of his efforts, but it is not, in the end, very good. I can mail you a review I wrote for an academic journal if you're interested, but it's far too long for LT. (mail me at slang@abecedary.net if you would like to see it).

And so, Mr Insufferably Arrogant, what have _you_ got to offer? You're justified in asking. Well, the big, cited work will run to three rather than five vols, and is due in 2009, or so my recently acquired publishers Chambers (the commissioning publisher Cassell no longer exist) and I intend. Meanwhile, and much affordably, to offer a single-vol edn in appx twelve months. It should have all the headwords/definitions/etymologies of the major work, but no citations. Thus one vol.

As for Legman, you could try asking around the American Dialect Society (http://www.americandialect.org/ - there is the online 'ads-l' (list) where one may ask such questions - whereon someone may well be able to provide an answer. I think there is an indeed an afterlife for his material and his collection, but I fear I can't offer chapter and verse.

And, finally, as for Pisanus - why self-censor. Far too much of it about. But then as the loathsome Mary Whitehouse would doubtless have suggested, I've been corrupted by my work.

JG

posted by abecedary at 9:25 am (EST) on Oct 25, 2007

It is always slightly unnerving to find someone who seems to make such similar literary choices. Excellent taste. And anyone who likes Steve Bell and Gershon Legman (can one 'like' Legman? appreciate, perhaps) is OK by me. Not to mention L. Bruce. Sadly - in retrospect - I sold a beautiful PG Wodehouse collection to buy slang stuff.

And many thanks for buying my slang dict.

JG

PS. Fraxi... Would that be Henry Spencer Ashbee?

posted by abecedary at 4:55 am (EST) on Oct 17, 2007

Nice library. Which work did you find to be more difficult: Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow? Also, which edition of Ulysses would you recommend?

posted by appeartodisappear at 2:17 pm (EST) on Jul 19, 2007

fraxi,

Thanks very much for joining the Proust Group

David Perrings
Danville, California

posted by dperrings at 4:39 pm (EST) on Jul 15, 2007

Thanks very much, Dave!

Robert

posted by DoctorRobert at 1:53 pm (EST) on Apr 12, 2007

fraxi,

I notice your extensive collection of books about Jack the Ripper. Is there a definitive and reliable book on the subject you would recommend for a beginner?

Thanks,
Robert

posted by DoctorRobert at 8:18 pm (EST) on Apr 11, 2007