A fact from Meanderings of Memory appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 22 May 2013. The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the 1852 manuscript Meanderings of Memory is used as an early or first source for 51 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, but when looked for in 2013, could not be located? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Did you know archive/2013/May. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Meanderings of Memory.

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The work was supposedly published, ergo there could be expected to be more than a single copy, it was not something scribed by hand. This makes me wonder if there are any other known works of which there is only a single known copy surviving. That would make a fascinating "see also" to this article, if such a list of one-surviving-copy of books were compiled. Damotclese (talk) 02:09, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Damotclese. An interesting idea for an article, if it could be sourced. You might start with a search like this.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:55, 20 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason this wasn't on my watchlist. Anyway, coming back to it now, I believe the article has been eviscerated. What was I thought a fascinating word mystery, has become utterly prosaic, with all of what should be the the up-front material summarized to its bare bones or moved to an afterthought. The focus is now all wrong. That is not to say that there has not been some good additions, but the removals and reorganization of the material is all wrong. I will not simply revert, but I do plan to completely change this back to what it was, and then work in the new material.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:25, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This comment at MetaFilter on the 1854 auction:

According to Sotheby's marked copy of the auction catalogue, Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen's copy of Meanderings of Memory was sold for sixpence to a buyer named 'Holmes' or 'Hoolmes'. Holmes bought a number of other inexpensive lots, and may have been a bookseller attending the sale. Just possibly he was the antiquary John Holmes, whose own library was sold at auction on 15 June 1854. It might be worth checking Holmes's sale catalogue to see if Meanderings of Memory turns up again.

jnestorius^(talk) 15:22, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My optimistic theory from the cited 1893 Bazaar, Exchange and Mart is that the questioner "Gandy" had inherited four books previously owned by their collateral ancestor, Edward Gandy. Of the books, Meanderings of Memory was one, two were Napoleonic history, and the fourth was written under the pseudonym "One of Us" by Edward Gandy. It seems plausible that Edward Gandy might also have used the pseudonym "Nightlark". One might compare the language in the NED snippets from Meanderings of Memory with the language in Gandy's known works:

• Lorenzo, the Outcast Son (1823; "a tragic drama founded on The Robbers of Frederic Schiller");
• Some passages in the life ... of Egomet Bonmot, Esq., edited by Mr Mwaughmaim and now first published by ME (1825; OCLC 45305485 "Mwaughmaim" = French: moi-même "myself"; "Egomet Bonmot" was a pseudonym of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright but this book is "probably the work of Edward Gandy");
• Caswallon, King of Britain (1826);
• Moods and Tenses (1827; by "One of Us");
• The Commercial Room (1847; by "One of Us").

Edward Gandy (1785^[1]/1788?^[2]–14 June 1859^[3]) was from Plymouth^[3][4]

• Youngest son of John Gandy, Vicar of St. Andrew's, Plymouth.^[3][2]
• Married Betty Hallerd in 1807^[1]
• Worked for 50 years as an accountant in the Admiralty,^[2] rising to First Clerk of the Prize Office.^[5][3]
• On 27 October 1854 at Market Deeping married Charity Courtis Ross (1818–1881^[2]) daughter of "the late Captain Daniel Ross, RN".^[6][2] — Possibly Daniel Ross (1780–1849) of the Royal Indian Navy?^[7]
• Eight siblings,^[1] including Samuel Whitlock Gandy (died 1851), Vicar of Kingston-upon-Thames.^[8] The Kingston parish register, kept since 1541, found its way to Edward after Samuel's death, and to a Plymouth bookseller after Edward's death. The Kingston vestry paid the bookseller two guineas to recover the book without the expense of a lawsuit.^[8]
• "Lifelong friend" of Charles Lock Eastlake.^[9]
• High Court of Chancery made an order re the case Wills vs. Gandy pending at his death.^[10]

jnestorius^(talk) 00:20, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Poetical Works of Thomas Cooper^[1] includes some vocab reminiscent of the NED words:

jnestorius^(talk) 11:55, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently George Washington University issued a News Release on 24 April 1991 titled "GW RESEARCHER SEEKS THE SOURCE TRACKING THE MEANDERINGS OF MEMORY". I imagine the researcher didn't get any further in 1991 than the OED staff did in 2013. jnestorius^(talk) 22:47, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I checked the actual article, and it isn't about the book at all. It is instead about memory lapses. CitationsFreak (talk) 08:58, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]