Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, often simply called Bartlett's, is an American reference work that is the longest-lived and most widely distributed collection of quotations. The book was first issued in 1855 and is currently in its eighteenth edition, published in 2012.

The book arranges its entries by author, rather than by subject, as many other quotation collections, and enters the authors chronologically by date of birth rather than alphabetically. Within years, authors are arranged alphabetically and quotations are arranged chronologically within each author's entry, followed by "attributed" remarks whose source in the author's writings has not been confirmed. The book contains a thorough keyword index and details the source of each quotation.

History

John Bartlett, who ran the University Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was frequently asked for information on quotations and he began a commonplace book of them for reference. In 1855, he privately printed his compilation as A Collection of Familiar Quotations. This first edition contained 258 pages of quotations by 169 authors, chiefly the Bible, William Shakespeare, and the great English poets. Bartlett wrote in the fourth edition that "it is not easy to determine in all cases the degree of familiarity that may belong to phrases and sentences which present themselves for admission; for what is familiar to one class of readers may be quite new to another."

Bartlett's (LIRR station)

Bartlett's was a private flag-stop on the Long Island Rail Road's Main Line, that opened under the name Bellport in 1844 with the opening of the LIRR. Located 2 ¹⁄₂ miles (4.0 km) east of Medfor d Station and thus much further north than Bellport, it included a stagecoach connection down Bellport (Station) Road to Bellport Village, hence the station's name. The station is mentioned in 1852 in the New York Traveller. This station appears on the 1852 timetable and on a map from 1873 as Bellport (Also on this map the Manorville Branch, the Main Line and the proposed SSRRLI right of way past Patchogue to meet with the Manorville Branch) This station was renamed "Bartlett's Station" on May 21, 1880 after NYS Court of Appeals Justice Willard Bartlett, whose father had purchased a farm in Brookhaven, then an estate of over 1000-acres. The station was abandoned at some point. The stop was a private flag-stop, which eventually was closed.

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