philologists

Peter Roget took his love for words and turned it to organizing ideas and finding exactly the right word to express just what he thought, eventually his lists turn into one of the most important reference books of all time.

"If only all the ideas in the world could be found in one place." With this in mind, chronic list-maker Peter Mark Roget wrote his Thesaurus, published in 1852.

A short biography of brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, early nineteenth-century law students who became interested in fairy tales and abandoned the law to collect and preserve as many folk and fairy tales as they could find.

A picture book biography of Peter Mark Roget, the creator of Roget's Thesaurus, one of the most widely used reference books ever published.

Dr. Ranson faces evil when the planet Perelandra is invaded by a dark force who strives to create a new world order.

Von Igelfeld is quite pleased with his role as a visiting scholar at Cambridge, even if his English colleagues can be difficult to comprehend. They frequently speak in metaphors and make peculiar assumptions, saying such odd things as "I take it your journey went well," when that is not the case at all. But von Igelfeld settles in the best he can, and is soon deeply embroiled in some shady political scheming at the university. After returning to the comfort of his perfectly rational Germany, von Igelfeld is invited to Colombia for a special fellowship. But while there, he gets caught up in some decidedly unscupulous behavior.

Invited to lecture in America, von Igelfeld envisions a visit to California or New York. Instead, he finds himself at the University of Arkansas. Still, in von Igelfeld's view, one American state is very like the other. An expert philolgist, von Igelfeld prepares to deliver a talk on verbs, until he makes a grim discovery--he has been mistaken for a German master of veterinary science who has recently passed away.

Von Igelfeld is the world's leading scholar on Portuguese irregular verbs, having written a majestic, nearly 1,200-page book on the subject. As one review says, "There is nothing more to be said on this subject. Nothing." But in other matters, von Igelfeld is not nearly so skilled. Whether haplessly playing tennis against an equally dreadful opponent, or committing his friends to swordfighting duels without their knowledge, von Igelfeld is somewhat naive in the ways of the world. Yet that does not stop him from having a go at life, and the results are always humorous.