ANECDOTE, a word originally meaning something not pub lished. It has now two distinct significations. The primary one is something not published, in which sense it has been used to denote either secret histories—Procopius, e.g., gives this as one of the titles of his secret history of Justinian's court—or portions of ancient writers, which have remained long in ms. and are edited for the first time. Of such anecdota there are many collections; the earliest was probably L. A. Muratori's, in 17o9. In the more general and popular acceptation of the word, however, anecdotes are short accounts of detached interesting particulars. Of such anecdotes the collections are almost infinite. Spence's Anecdotes, Horace Walpole's Anecdotes of English Painting, and Mrs. Thrale's Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. are i8th century collections that are still read. One of the best compila tions is that made by T. Byerley (d. 1826) and J. Clinton Rob ertson (d. 1852) known as the Percy Anecdotes (182o-23). A more recent collection is Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, edited by W. R. Nicoll and T. J. Wise.