CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
"Vague expectations of an impending calamity gnaw at one's heart, but when the blow descends, with it also descends a strange sort of peace." From the Bombay Sunday Chronicle, 1945.
This sounds disconcertingly familiar: "I bewailed my fate, and then sunk down exhausted," from The Casquet of Literature, 1895. Illustration by W. H. Overend.
"I found myself sitting bolt upright in bed, while a roar like the crack of doom rang in my ears," from With the Colours by Richard Mounteney Jephson, 1881.