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RR 2007/02 Last Words: A Dictionary of Deathbed Quotations C. Bernard Ruffin McFarland Jefferson, NC 2006 vii + 261 pp. ISBN 0 7864 2552 0 $35
Reprint: first published 1995
Keywords Dictionaries, History
Review DOI 10.1108/09504120710719365
Last Words: A Dictionary of Deathbed Quotations offers the final utterances of more than 2,000 celebrated individuals through history. In the introduction of this reprinted edition, Ruffin expresses the view that deathbed words are often insightful windows into both the human psyche and the adventure of death. Ruffin's perspective is religious in nature, and so are many - diough not all - of the quotations included. Inclusion in this dictionary seems to have been decided on sheer availability of quotations of famous individuals. In some traditions - European monarchs and American presidents, for example - it was once customary to accurately record last words, and so, this dictionary leans toward groups...