born June 14, 1820, Plymouth, Mass., U.S.
died Dec. 3, 1905, Cambridge, Mass.
U.S. bookseller and editor.
Bartlett was an employee and then owner of the Harvard University Bookstore. In 1855 he published the work for which he is best known, Familiar Quotations , based largely on a notebook he kept for his customers. It was greatly expanded in later editions; the 17th edition appeared in 2002. He also wrote a complete concordance to Shakespeare's dramatic works and poems (1894), outstanding for the number and fullness of its citations.
John Bartlett
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