Proverbs: A Handbook

A specialists in proverbs, Mieder (German and folklore, U. of Vermont) updates references on them that are 75, 100, and 150 years old now, drawing on scholarship of the past seven decades or so. He writes for educated general readers, rather than scholars, and emphasizes Anglo-American proverbs in English-language contexts. Among the academic matters he considers are traditional forms, types of proverb collections, comprehensive overviews of paremiology, and iconography. Many readers, however, will find the most interesting his examples. Among them are First Come, First Served as a Medieval legal proverb from the millers, A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words as an advertising slogan that turned into American proverb, Behind the Cloud the Sun Is Shining in Abraham Lincoln's proverbial fight against slavery, and Lord Chesterfield's classic A Man of Fashion Never Has Recourse to Proverbs. First published in 2004 by Greenwood Press. Annotation 穢2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)