Ashgate Critical Essays on Early English Lexicographers Volume 5: The Eighteenth Century Ashgate Critical Essays on Early English Lexicographers Series

The eighteenth century is renowned for the publication of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, which reference sources still call the first English dictionary. This collection demonstrates the inaccuracy of that claim, but its tenacity in the public mind testifies to how decisively Johnson formed our sense of what a dictionary is. The essays and articles in this volume examine the already flourishing tradition of English lexicography from which Johnson drew, as represented by Kersey, Bailey, and Martin, as well as the flourishing contemporary trade in encyclopedic, technical, pronunciation, and bilingual lexicons.

Contents: Introduction; Part I Background: 18th-century dictionaries and the Enlightenment, Carey McIntosh. Part II Overview: Pronouncing systems in 18th-century dictionaries, Esther K. Sheldon; Vulgar tongues: canting dictionaries and the language of the people in 18th-century Britain, Janet Sorensen. Part III Individual Monolingual Dictionaries: John Kersey, A New English Dictionary (1702): The authorship of A New English Dictionary (1702), Christian Heddesheimer; John Kersey and the ordinary words of English, N.E. Osselton. ’Edward Cocker’, Cocker’s English Dictionary (1704) (rev.John Hawkins, second edition 1715): Edward Cocker and Cocker's English Dictionary, Gertrude E. Noyes. Nathan Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721; volume II 1727); Dictionarium Britannicum (1730; second edition 1736): The drudgery of defining: Johnson’s debt to Bailey’s Dictionarium Britannicum, David McCracken. Benjamin Martin, Lingua Britannica Reformata: Or, A New English Dictionary (1749): Benjamin Martin the linguist, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755): Johnson and the Renaissance dictionary, Paul J. Korshin; The compilation methods of Johnson's Dictionary, Anne McDermott; 17th-century jurisprudence and 18th-century lexicography: sources for Johnson’s notion of authority, John Stone; Johnson's Dictionary and legal dictionaries, J.T. Scanlan; Johnson's Dictionary and the politics of 'standard English', Nicholas Hudson. Joseph Nicol Scott and Nathan Bailey, A New Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1755): Notes on serialization and competitive publishing: Johnson's and Bailey's Dictionaries, 1755, Philip B. Gove. John Entick, The New Spelling Dictionary (1765); Ann Fisher, An Accurate New Spelling Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (1773): John Entick's and Ann Fisher's Dictionaries: an 18th-century case of (cons)piracy, Alicia Rodríguez-Álvarez and Maria Esther Rodríguez-

Anne C. McDermott is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Birmingham, UK.