The Sincerest Form of Flattery…
Sarah Johnson, a reference librarian at Eastern Illinois University, and keeper of Reading the Past, began to notice some striking similarities in the cover art of books she was reviewing. She began to collect examples, and viola– Reusable Cover Art, from whence, the example above.
Click through for many other striking (and often, amusingly ironic) resemblances– and all the way to the bottom of the gallery for a nifty set of links to even more.
(Thanks to reader NM)
As we contemplate Shepard Fairey’s predicament, we might recall that it was on this date in 1884 that the first edition of The Oxford English Dictionary was published. Edited by James Murray (“The Professor” in Simon Winchester’s wonderful The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary), it was originally a project of the Philological Society of London, devoted to cataloging the English words that had evaded inclusion in then-current dictionaries. The first edition had the benefit of 27 years of work, by dozens of contributors; it sold 4,000 copies.
James Murray in the Scriptorium, the home of the OED,
on Banbury Road in Oxford (source)