First, as it neared publication, it received worldwide publicity—as in this excited report by Clive Ellis and Neil Tweedie frm the January 31, 2003 edition of The Daily Telegraph. It reports that “The New Dictionary of National Biography” is “one of the most ambitious literary projects undertaken,” with over 10,000 contributors making it “twice as long as long as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. On September 23, 2004, another Telegraph report announced the publication date had arrived, and the new dictionary was being hailed as “the greatest cultural enterprise on earth.” Ahem. Less than a month later, critics have had a chance to look over it, and, well, as another Telegraph story reports, the new edition “is riddled with errors.” Elizabeth Day says a “number” of experts have found “glaring inaccuracies . . . and say that the lax editorial process makes a mockery of the £7,500 retail price.”