OED on offer

The twenty volume edition is on offer from OUP for £525. I still don't have the space; in fact I even more don't have the space than last time there was discussion here. Time must be running out for buying the print edition, and the OUP's email just causes fret about passing opportunities that can't be taken.

This is really bad. Couldn't they have waited a month more or so.

Do you have a link?

>2 ironjaw: Offer open until the end of January, Faisel.

>3 LesMiserables: Here:

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/category/academic/promotions/reference/aroedhol13.do

No idea about shipping to Oz.

Edited: typo

Thanks.

Great deal for those in UK. For the rest of us who reside in a cultural desert (indigenous folk excepted) we have to put up with the OUP (AU) at $1500 or so.

Hmm, thanks affle! Just noticed the offer available until end of January. That's great. Have to get this! It's been on my wish list for such a long time. Now if only I could get 60 vol. DNB for cheaper than £1500!!!

This is a great offer. I only wish I had room for it. I've always regretted ditching the print version for the digital. I'm pretty sure OUP have already announced they are not going to reprint a physical version, so this could be your last and best chance.

In response to #2, as to why they couldn't wait a month.... I suspect it's year-end accounting. :-) Companies always want an extra push at the end so their past year looks better on the books.

Well, couldn't resist it anymore so put in an order. £525 + £5 shipping and £131 in taxes totalling £661 I've wanted the OED for years now, so this will be a great Christmas present for myself. I'm so happy!!!!

> 9

Brilliant.

>9 ironjaw:

Congratulations, Faisel - I have little doubt it will give endless pleasure.

Okay, I'm in too! A dream come true.

Of course that means the Folio Society big sale that starts 20th December will be a window shopping experience only :-)

...and of course that would give me more ready cash to spend on The Oxford Latin Dictionary (Glare) when they reduce that (I wish)

How much did you end up paying for OED?

> 15

Two quid more than you!

Well that's not bad :) Congratulations. Dictionary of National Biography, next?

Would like the 10v Routledge encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Got a message saying my shipment had dispatched :-)
So, still quite not believing that the deal went through with only £7 shipping to Australia, but it has, I have ordered the three supplements to complete the set.

> 9

This is too good an opportunity not to give a word of warning about the likely effect of the arrival of your OED. Arthur Ransome, author of the Swallows and Amazons series, was 'godfather and nanny' to Rupert Hart-Davis's The Mariners Library series of classics of cruising literature, including writing introductions to seven volumes. Ransome refused all payment for the work, so Hart-Davis gave him a set of the OED in gratitude, receiving the following letter, reprinted in Signalling from Mars: the letters of Arthur Ransome:

June 4 1949
Lowick Hall

My dear Hart-Davis,

Are you sure your fellow Directors have not passed a vote of censure on you for gross extravagance? What chance has the firm got of ultimate success if it begins by hurling Great Oxford English Dictionaries quite unnecessarily at people who never expected anything of the kind?

But I can't pretend not to be pleased.

IT has arrived. We are planning to move to a larger house to make room for IT. When the new part of Lowick was built in 1748, no-one foresaw that it would have to house a Great Oxford English Dictionary. Not one of my hats will any longer fit my head as I go prancing round, the owner of a Great Oxford English Dictionary. Long ago, in the time of the Zulu wars, Sir Garnet Wolseley {the model of Gilbert & Sullivan's modern Major-General} told the drill sergeant of my prep. school that the British soldier should walk 'as if one side of the street belonged to him and he expected the other shortly'. What sort of walk would he have prescribed for owners of Great Oxford English Dictionaries? Hang it, with that book in my room, I have got BOTH sides of the street already.

TWELVE volumes, plus the Supplement ... (That way of counting is in itself delightful and humane ... Oxford University, free, of course, from all superstition but taking no chances with the number that comes between twelve and fourteen.)

Nothing is missing but an inscription to put in the beginning and I strongly suspect that your fellow directors would indignantly refuse to sign one. And I don’t blame them.

IT has the most extraordinary effect upon me. Looking at IT full face, or even feeling ITS blue buckram presence arming my back, I have the oddest illusion that after all I must be some sort of a writer.

I daren't risk the loss of that illusion by trying to write.

And, anyhow, I have now a full-time job. I am an Owner of a GREAT OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY. That's enough of a job for anybody. I have and shall have no time for anything else.

Yours ever,
Arthur Ransome
O.G.O.E.D

In his will, Ransome left the dictionary to Hart-Davis.

20

Nice touch. To be honest, I have no friends who would see the point in having such a set, which limits my own swaggering to my private library and to my online acquaintances.

I'ts suddenly dawned upon me that I need some more friends of the bookish type.

Congratulations to both you new OED owners! Hours of quiet contemplation, poring over one volume after another, followed by frenzied attempts to enlighten passers by with your latest serendipitous* discoveries. You won't regret it; they might!

That's a great quote, Cynfelyn, from the immortal Arthur Ransome. I wonder what his wife, Evgenia - never shy of voicing her opinions - said when she found out what was coming!

* serendipitous, a.
(sɛrɛnˈdɪpɪtəs)

f. serendipit(y + -ous.

a. Of persons: having the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident.

OED

22

Thank you Boldface. I'm tremendously excited at this purchase, noting similar emotions as experienced on my Britannica Encyclopedia purchase, which I have made great use of.

Thank's Jonathan! And thanks Cynfelyn for that wonderful and insightful story

LesMis, was Britannica the newest edition?

24

Penultimate at a gorgeously attractive price.

Where and how? "at a gorgeously attractive price."

Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 £401.45 Book Depository delivered. 2009

wow, now that is cheap!

Since then I managed to buy another 15th edition in good condition, but say 20 years older, on eBay for $75 locally.

Here it is, delivered just before Christmas in 5 boxes!

>30 ironjaw: That was impressively quick, Faisel. Do let us know how you like it when you've got it unpacked, and had a good look at it. I wonder how long it'll take the OUP to get a copy to LesMis?

Yes Alan I was really surprised at how quick they were delivered and before Christmas. I was at least expecting after New Year! Bravo OUP!

30

My lord, that's impressive!

Pray tell us ironjaw, how have you found them?

OUP winter sale at up to 75% is now on!!!

SALE 75% OFF

Some preliminary interesting things on offer:

- The Oxford Companion to the Book at £100
- The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages at £192
- The Oxford Chronology of English Literature at £40

An outstanding sale. Some excellent volumes available. Very dangerous indeed.

Oh yes it is, are you going to make an order? I'm not to sure yet. Haven't browsed it all through

I got some from their sale last winter, but I had such issues with placing the order and then their customer service, that I told myself I would never order from them again...

Only little fish for me this sale (closes soon): five books averaging very slightly more than a fiver each, and free postage. Pick of the bunch for interest may be Patricia Fara on Erasmus Darwin.

As posted on the FSD group, I've just taken advantage of the FS offer on the leather OED set, which is now being remaindered as there will be no more print editions. Whatever binding you go for, the print edition is the one that gives most pleasure. I would happily take it to the Desert Island (reference to the long-running BBC Radio 4 series) with me where it would serve both as spiritual nourishment and as a handy table and chair.

40

An absolute bargain boldface. Well done.

40

I've no idea what your first word search will be when you get your volumes.

'Skitter' was mine.

>42 LesMiserables:

'Extravagance', probably!

For your wife's attention, you may thumb to 'indispensable'.

It has gotten me out of a few scrapes in the past :-)

See the 'Folio Big Set Sale' thread, #252, on the Folio Society Devotees group for the revelation that the FS offer, illustrating the deluxe leather edition and quoting a reduction on the leather edition price of £5000, was a mistake, as Folio only ever had copies of the standard edition (current OUP price: £750). The FS have apologised and I am currently awaiting their response to a request for a revised offer price.

45

I went online and saw the offer myself. The deluxe edition was the one that was for sale.

I hope it works out for you. The standard set is still excellent.

>46 LesMiserables:

Yes, I have a screenshot of the offer for reference.

As you say, the standard set is still wonderful. I've just dusted down my Compact edition (the one with nine pages of the original printed micrographically on one of the Compact). It's great on space but so heavy and difficult to read that the CD-ROM or online versions are preferable. The great advantage of the full-sized print edition is for browsing - something that many people would think mad in relation to a dictionary - but I don't need to explain to you what I mean.

47

No indeed, and on my desk, my working dictionary is the double volume Shorter Oxford which I believe has around one third of the OED definitions less the etymological examples and history.

I just love being able to grab a volume of the OED when the moment for clarification or curiosity arises in full knowledge that I will be satisfied.

I also much prefer the feel of book in my hands rather than digital.

By the way, there is a three volume supplement available, much smaller though in octavo.

I still haven't bought the three volume supplements. And yes there is absolutely something else being able to grab a volume of the OED to browse. I just love the English language - so rich. Danish cannot compare I am afraid.

49

Ironjaw, did you read Burchfield's The English Language also published by FS? I really enjoyed that one.

No sir, I did not. i have added it to the wish list. Thank you.

I think you will enjoy it.

>48 LesMiserables:
>49 ironjaw:

I do indeed have the three 'Additions' volumes which add a few more entries to the 2nd print edition. I bought them in the 90s when they first came out. After vol. 3, the decision was taken not to print any more and to publish the Third Edition (OED3) online only.

Another Festive offer for OED for those who don't have the print edition (or maybe have but would like online access): £95 online for 12 months subscription

http://global.oup.com/uk/academic/reference/oedholiday/?WT.mc_id=dic121402

Offer ends 30 January 2015.

I don't think that it would look as good on my shelves. :-)

Sad to say my OED has been trashed by a removal company.

I'll get over it.

Too attached :-(

We are pleased to offer annual individual OED subscriptions at a reduced rate of $90 in the US (usually $295) or £90 for the Rest of the World (usually £215) until 31st July 2019. For this annual rate, you’ll have full unrestricted access to the OED Online – including quarterly updates!