Read the Excerpts From Samuel Johnsonã¢â‚¬â„¢s Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language.

1755 dictionary by Samuel Johnson

A Dictionary of the English

Title folio from the 2nd edition of the Lexicon
Writer	Samuel Johnson
Country	Great britain
Linguistic communication	English
Subject	Dictionary
Publisher	consortium
Publication date	15 April 1755

A Dictionary of the English Language , sometimes published as Johnson's Lexicon , was published on fifteen April 1755 and written past Samuel Johnson.^[i] It is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language.

In that location was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period, so in June 1746 a grouping of London booksellers contracted Johnson to write a dictionary for the sum of 1,500 guineas (£1,575), equivalent to about £250,000 in 2022.^[2] Johnson took seven years to complete the work, although he had claimed he could terminate information technology in three. He did and so single-handedly, with only clerical assist to copy the illustrative quotations that he had marked in books. Johnson produced several revised editions during his life.

Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 173 years afterwards, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent English lexicon. According to Walter Jackson Bate, the Dictionary "easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed past ane individual who laboured under annihilation like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time".^[3]

Background [edit]

In earlier times, books had been regarded with something budgeted veneration, just by the mid-eighteenth century this was no longer the case. The rise of literacy among the full general public, combined with the technical advances in the mechanics of printing and bookbinding, meant that for the first time, books, texts, maps, pamphlets and newspapers were widely bachelor to the general public at a reasonable price. Such an explosion of the printed word demanded a ready pattern of grammar, definition, and spelling for those words. This could be accomplished by means of an administrative dictionary of the English language linguistic communication. In 1746, a consortium of London's most successful printers, including Robert Dodsley and Thomas Longman – none could afford to undertake it alone – set out to satisfy and capitalise on this demand by the always-increasing reading and writing public.

Johnson's dictionary was non the first English dictionary, nor fifty-fifty among the offset dozen. Over the previous 150 years more than than twenty dictionaries had been published in England, the oldest of these being a Latin-English language "wordbook" by Sir Thomas Elyot published in 1538.

The next to announced was past Richard Mulcaster, a headmaster, in 1583. Mulcaster compiled what he termed "a generall table [of viii one thousand words] we commonlie use...[yet] It were a thing verie praise worthy...if som well learned...would gather all words which we use in the English tung...into i dictionary..."^[4]

In 1598, an Italian–English language dictionary past John Florio was published. It was the first English dictionary to use quotations ("illustrations") to requite meaning to the word; in none of these dictionaries so far were in that location any bodily definitions of words. This was to alter, to a small extent, in schoolmaster Robert Cawdrey's Tabular array Alphabeticall, published in 1604. Though information technology contained only 2,449 words, and no discussion beginning with the letters W, Ten, or Y, this was the offset monolingual English dictionary.

Several more dictionaries followed: in Latin, English, French and Italian. Benjamin Martin's Lingua Britannica Reformata (1749) and Ainsworth's Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1737) are both meaning, in that they define entries in separate senses, or aspects, of the word. In English (among others), John Cowell's Interpreter, a law dictionary, was published in 1607, Edward Phillips' The new world of English words came out in 1658 and a dictionary of xl,000 words had been prepared in 1721 by Nathan Bailey, though none was as comprehensive in breadth or style as Johnson's.

The problem with these dictionaries was that they tended to exist petty more poorly organised and poorly researched glossaries of "hard words": words that were technical, foreign, obscure or blowsy. Merely peradventure the greatest unmarried error of these early lexicographers was, as historian Henry Hitchings put information technology, that they "failed to give sufficient sense of [the English] linguistic communication as information technology appeared in use."^[5] In that sense Dr. Johnson's dictionary was the starting time to comprehensively document the English lexicon.

Johnson's grooming [edit]

Johnson'south dictionary was prepared at 17 Gough Square, London, an eclectic household, betwixt the years of 1746 and 1755. By 1747 Johnson had written his Programme of a Dictionary of the English, which spelled out his intentions and proposed methodology for preparing his document. He conspicuously saw benefit in drawing from previous efforts, and saw the process as a parallel to legal precedent (perhaps influenced past Cowell):

I shall therefore, since the rules of stile, like those of police force, arise from precedents often repeated, collect the testimonies of both sides, and endeavour to find and promulgate the decrees of custom, who has so long possessed whether past right or by usurpation, the sovereignty of words.

Johnson'due south Plan received the patronage of Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield merely not to Johnson'due south pleasure.^[six] Chesterfield did not care about praise, merely was instead interested by Johnson's abilities.^[7] Seven years after offset meeting Johnson to discuss the piece of work, Chesterfield wrote two anonymous essays in The World that recommended the Lexicon.^[seven] He complained that the English language language was lacking structure and argued:

Nosotros must have recourse to the sometime Roman expedient in times of defoliation, and chose a dictator. Upon this principle, I requite my vote for Mr Johnson to fill that great and arduous post.^[8]

However, Johnson did non appreciate the tone of the essay, and he felt that Chesterfield had not made good on his promise to be the work'due south patron.^[eight] In a letter, Johnson explained his feelings virtually the thing:

7 years, my lord, have at present past since I waited in your outward rooms or was repulsed from your door, during which fourth dimension I take been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and accept brought it at last to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such handling I did not expect, for I never had a patron before ... Is non a patron, my lord, i who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached footing, encumbers him with assist? The notice which you take been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early on, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot savor it; till I am solitary and cannot impart information technology; till I am known and do not want it.^[nine]

The text [edit]

A Lexicon of the English language Language was somewhat big and very expensive. Its pages were 18 inches (46 cm) tall and well-nigh 20 inches (51 cm) broad. The paper was of the finest quality bachelor, the price of which ran to virtually £one,600; more than Johnson had been paid to write the book. Johnson himself pronounced the book "Vasta mole superbus" ("Proud in its great bulk").^[10] No bookseller could possibly promise to print this book without aid; exterior a few special editions of the Bible no book of this heft and size had even been set to type.

The title page reads:

A
Lexicon
of the
English language Language :
in which
The WORDS are deduced from their ORIGINALS,
and
ILLUSTRATED in their DIFFERENT SIGNIFICATIONS
by
EXAMPLES from the best WRITERS.
To which are prefixed,
A HISTORY of the LANGUAGE,
and AN English language GRAMMAR.
By SAMUEL JOHNSON, A.K.
In Ii Volumes
VOL. I

The words "Samuel Johnson" and "English language Language" were printed in red; the rest was printed in black. The preface and headings were set up in four.6 mm "English" blazon, the text—double columned—was set in 3.5 mm pica. This first edition of the dictionary contained a 42,773-give-and-take list, to which only a few more were added in subsequent editions. One of Johnson's of import innovations was to illustrate the meanings of his words by literary quotation, of which at that place are around 114,000. The authors most ofttimes cited by Johnson include Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden. For example:

OPULENCE

Wealth; riches; affluence

"In that location in full opulence a banker dwelt,

Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt;

His sideboard glitter'd with imagin'd plate,

And his proud fancy held a vast estate."

-- Jonathan Swift

Furthermore, Johnson, unlike Bailey, added notes on a discussion'due south usage, rather than being merely descriptive.

Unlike virtually modern lexicographers, Johnson introduced humour or prejudice into quite a number of his definitions. Among the best-known are:

• "Excise: a hateful tax levied upon commodities and adjudged not by the mutual judges of belongings but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid"^[11]
• "Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words"^[12]
• "Oats: a grain which in England is more often than not given to horses, merely in Scotland supports the people"^[13]

A couple of less well-known examples are:

• "Monsieur: a term of reproach for a Frenchman"^[14]
• "Patron: I who countenances, supports, or protects. Unremarkably a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery."^[fifteen] which some have understood to be a jab at his patron Philip Stanhope.^[16]

He included whimsical footling-known words, such as:

• "Writative – A word of Pope's, not to be imitated: "Increase of years makes men more than talkative but less writative; to that caste I now write letters but of plain how d'ey's.""^[17]

On a more serious level, Johnson's work showed a heretofore unseen meticulousness. Unlike all the proto-dictionaries that had come up before, painstaking intendance went into the completeness when information technology came non only to "illustrations" but also to definitions equally well:

• "Turn" had 16 definitions with 15 illustrations
• "Time" had 20 definitions with 14 illustrations
• "Put" ran more than than v,000 words spread over iii pages
• "Take" had 134 definitions, running 8,000 words, over 5 pages^[xviii]

The original goal was to publish the dictionary in ii folio volumes: A–Thou and Fifty–Z. But that soon proved unwieldy, unprofitable, and unrealistic. Subsequent printings ran to four volumes; fifty-fifty these formed a stack 10 inches (25 cm) tall, and weighed in at nearly 21 pounds (9.5 kg).^{[ commendation needed ]} In addition to the sheer physical heft of Johnson's dictionary, came the equally hefty cost: £4/10/– (equivalent to approximately £715 in 2022).^[2] Then discouraging was the cost that by 1784, thirty years after the first edition was published, when the dictionary had by then run through v editions, merely about 6,000 copies were in circulation—an average sale of 200 books a yr for thirty years.^{[ commendation needed ]}

Johnson's etymologies would be considered poor by modernistic standards, and he gave little guide to pronunciation; one example being "Cough: A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated past some precipitous serosity. It is pronounced coff". Much of his dictionary was prescriptivist. It was also linguistically conservative, advocating traditional spellings such as publick rather than the simpler spellings that would be favoured 73 years afterwards by Noah Webster.

The dictionary is in alphabetical order according to the 18th Century English alphabet. In the eighteenth century, the letters I and J were considered different forms of the same letter; the aforementioned with letters U and Five. As a result, in Johnson's dictionary the discussion jargon comes before the give-and-take idle, and vagabond comes before ultimate.^[nineteen]

In spite of its shortcomings, the dictionary was far and away the best of its solar day. Its scope and construction were carried forrard in dictionaries that followed, including Noah Webster's Webster'south Dictionary in 1828 and the Oxford English Dictionary afterward in the same century.

Reception history [edit]

Initial reception [edit]

From the beginning there was universal appreciation non only of the content of the Dictionary but also of Johnson's achievement in single-handedly creating information technology: "When Boswell came to this role of Johnson'southward life, more than than iii decades later, he pronounced that 'the world contemplated with wonder and so stupendous a work achieved by i homo, while other countries had idea such undertakings fit only for whole academies'."^[20] "The Lexicon was considered, from the moment of its inception, to be Johnson's, and from the time of its completion it was Johnson's Dictionary—his book and his holding, his monument, his memorial."^[21]

Immediately after publication "The Dictionary was enthusiastically written up in of import periodicals such as the London Magazine and—none also surprisingly—the Gentleman's Magazine. In the latter it received an eight-page notice".^[22] Reviews, such as they were, proved generous in tone: "Of the less positive assessments the simply properly judicious 1 came from Adam Smith in the pro-Whig Edinburgh Review ... he wished that Johnson 'had oftener passed his own censure upon those words which are not of approved use, though sometimes to exist met with in authors of no mean name'. Furthermore, Johnson'south approach was non 'sufficiently grammatical'".^[23]

Despite the Dictionary'south critical acclaim, Johnson's general financial situation continued in its dismal style for some years subsequently 1755: "The paradigm of Johnson racing to write Rasselas to pay for his female parent's funeral, romantic hyperbole though information technology is, conveys the precariousness of his existence, almost iv years after his piece of work on the Dictionary was done. His financial uncertainties connected. He gave up the house in Gough Square in March 1759, probably for lack of funds. Yet, merely as Johnson was plunging into another trough of despondency, the reputation of the Dictionary at last brought reward. In July 1762 Johnson was granted a land alimony of £300 a year past the twenty-four-year-old monarch, George Three. The pension did not make him rich, just information technology ensured he would no longer accept to chow around for the odd republic of guinea."^[24]

Criticism [edit]

Every bit lexicography developed, faults were plant with Johnson's work: "From an early stage there were noisy detractors. Peradventure the loudest of them was John Horne Tooke ... Not content to pronounce information technology 'imperfect and faulty', he complained that it was '1 of the most idle performances always offered to the public', that its author 'possessed not one single requisite for the undertaking', that its grammatical and historical parts were 'virtually truly contemptible performances', and that 'near i third ... is as much the language of the Hottentots as of the English'."^[25] "Horace Walpole summed up for the unbelievers when he pronounced at the stop of the eighteenth century, 'I cannot imagine that Dr Johnson'southward reputation will be very lasting.' His dictionary was 'a surprising work for one man', but 'the task is too much for ane man, and ... a society should alone pretend to publish a standard dictionary.' Withal Walpole's reservations, the admirers out-numbered the detractors, and the reputation of the Dictionary was repeatedly boosted by other philologists, lexicographers, educationalists and word detectives."^[26]

Johnson's dictionary was made when etymology was largely based on guesswork. His Classical leanings led him to prefer spellings that pointed to Latin or Greek sources, "while his lack of sound scholarship prevented him from detecting their frequent errors". For example, he preferred the spelling ache over ake as he wrongly idea it came from the Greek achos. Some of his spelling choices were also inconsistent: "while retaining the Latin p in receipt he left it out of deceit; he spelled deign one style and disdain another; he spelled uphill only downhil, muckhill only dunghil, instill but distil, inthrall only disenthral".^[27]

Boswell^[28] relates that "A lady once asked him [Johnson] how he came to define pastern equally the human knee of a horse: instead of making an elaborate reply, as she expected, he at in one case replied, 'Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.'" On the aforementioned folio, Boswell notes that Johnson'due south definition of network ("Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections")^[29] "has often been quoted with sportive malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself very evidently."

Other than stress indication, the dictionary did non characteristic many discussion-specific orthoepical guidelines, with Johnson stating that 'For pronunciation, the best full general rule is, to consider those as the near elegant speakers who deviate least from the written sounds' and referring to the irregular pronunciations as 'jargon'; this was subject to coetaneous criticism by John Walker, who wrote in the preface of his Critical Pronouncing Lexicon 'Information technology is certain, where custom is equal, this ought to take identify; and if the whole body of respectable English speakers were every bit divided in thir pronunciation of the discussion busy, i one-half pronuncing it bew-ze, and the other one-half biz-ze, that the onetime ought to be accounted the most elegant speakers; just till this is the case, the latter pronunciation, though a gross deviation from orthography, volition be esteemed the most elegant. Dr. Johnson's general rule, therefore, can only have place where custom has not plainly decided.'^[30] Nevertheless, Walker scrupulously followed Johnson's explanations of words, as did many contemporary dictionaries.^[31]

Influence in Britain [edit]

Despite the criticisms, "The influence of the Dictionary was sweeping. Johnson established both a methodology for how dictionaries should be put together and a paradigm for how entries should be presented. Anyone who sought to create a lexicon, mail service-Johnson, did and so in his shadow."^[32] "In his history of the Oxford English Dictionary, Simon Winchester asserts of its eighteenth-century predecessor that 'by the finish of the century every educated household had, or had access to, the great book. So firmly established did it swiftly go that any asking for "The Dictionary" would bring forth Johnson and none other.' 'One asked for The Dictionary,' writes Winchester, 'much as one might need The Bible.'"^[33] 1 of the starting time editors of the OED, James Murray, acknowledged that many of Johnson's explanations were adopted without change, for 'When his definitions are correct, and his arrangement judicious, it seems to be expedient to follow him.' ... In the end the OED reproduced around 1,700 of Johnson'south definitions, marking them simply 'J.'."^[34]

Reputation abroad [edit]

Johnson's influence was not confined to Britain and English: "The president of the Florentine Accademia alleged that the Dictionary would be 'a perpetual Monument of Fame to the Author, an Honour to his own Country in item, and a general Benefit to the Republic of Letters'. This was no empty citation. Johnson'south work served as a model for lexicographers abroad. It is no surprise that his friend Giuseppe Baretti chose to make the Dictionary the model for his Italian—English dictionary of 1760, and for his Spanish dictionary about ii decades later.^[35] Merely in that location are numerous examples of influence across Johnson's own circle. His work was translated into French and German."^[36] And "In 1777, when Ferdinando Bottarelli published a pocket lexicon of Italian, French and English (the iii languages side by side), his authorities for the French and Italian words were the works of the French and Italian academies: for the English he used Johnson."^[37]

Influence in America [edit]

The Lexicon was exported to America. "The American adoption of the Dictionary was a momentous upshot not only in its history, simply in the history of lexicography. For Americans in the second half of the eighteenth century, Johnson was the seminal say-so on language, and the subsequent development of American lexicography was coloured past his fame."^[37] For American lexicographers the Dictionary was impossible to ignore: "America's two great nineteenth-century lexicographers, Noah Webster and Joseph Emerson Worcester, argued fiercely over Johnson'southward legacy ... In 1789 [Webster] declared that 'Peachy Britain, whose children we are, and whose language nosotros speak, should no longer be our standard; for the gustatory modality of her writers is already corrupted, and her linguistic communication on the decline.'"^[38] "Where Webster found error with Johnson, Joseph Worcester saluted him ... In 1846 he completed his Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English language Language. He defended Johnson's work, arguing that 'from the time of its publication, [it] has been, far more than any other, regarded as the standard for the language'."^[39] Notwithstanding the evolution of lexicography in America, "The Dictionary has also played its part in the constabulary, especially in the U.s.. Legislators are much occupied with ascertaining 'outset meanings', with trying to secure the literal sense of their predecessors' legislation ... Ofttimes it is a matter of historicizing linguistic communication: to understand a law, you need to understand what its terminology meant to its original architects ... as long as the American Constitution remains intact, Johnson'southward Dictionary will accept a office to play in American law."^[40]

Folio and abridged editions [edit]

Samuel Johnson's Page and Abridged Dictionaries together

Close up of pages for M entries in the Folio and Abridged Dictionaries of 1755 and 1756 by Samuel Johnson

Johnson's lexicon came out in two forms.

The showtime was the 1755 Folio edition, which came in 2 large volumes on 4 April. The folio edition also features total literary quotes by those authors that Johnson quoted, such as Dryden and Shakespeare. It was followed a few weeks afterward by a 2d edition published in 165 weekly parts. The third edition was published in 1765, but it was the fourth, which came out in 1773 which included significant revisions past Johnson of the original work.^[41]

The Abridged edition came out in 1756 in two octavo volumes with entries, "abstracted from the folio edition past the author",^[42] laid out equally two columns per page. The abridged version did non feature the literary quotes, just the author quoted. This made information technology cheaper to produce and buy. It sold over a thou copies a year for the adjacent xxx years bringing "The Dictionary" to the reach of every literate habitation.^[43]

Modern editions [edit]

Johnson's Dictionary has been available in replica editions for some years. The entire first Page edition is available on A Dictionary of the English Language^[44] as an electronic scan. Equally of April 15, 2021, A Dictionary of the English Language volition become Johnsons Lexicon Online, a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and created by a team of scholars at the University of Primal Florida. This version is the first fully searchable online edition and will somewhen include the 1775 page edition.

The Preface to the Dictionary is bachelor on Project Gutenberg.^[45] In add-on, a scan of the 6th (1785) edition can be found at the Net Archive in its two volumes.^{[46] [47]}

In popular civilisation [edit]

The compilation of Johnson's Dictionary was the main plot-line for an episode of Blackadder the Third where Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), after misreckoning the scholar with a barrage of fabricated nonexistent words, tries to conceal the destruction of the lexicon'south manuscript by his retainer. Johnson had given his only manuscript to the Prince and was presumably destroyed by Blackadder's apprentice dogsbody Baldrick. The episode ends with Baldrick obliviously throwing the dictionary into the fire.

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Advertisement in Derby Mercury 4 April 1755, page iv 'This day is published a Lexicon of the English past Samuel Johnson'
2. ^ ^{a b} United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland Retail Cost Alphabetize inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Nowadays (New Series)". MeasuringWorth . Retrieved 2 December 2021.
3. ^ Bate, Walter Jackson. Samuel Johnson, Ch. 15, "Storming the Main Gate: The Dictionary". New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.
4. ^ Hitchings 2005, London p. 48; New York p. 53
5. ^ Hitchings 2005, London p. 49; New York p. 55
6. ^ Lane pp. 117–118
7. ^ ^{a b} Lane p. 118
8. ^ ^{a b} Lane p. 121
9. ^ Johnson Messages No. 56
10. ^ Hitchings 2005, London p. 195; New York p. 209
11. ^ Come across online copy of sixth edition
12. ^ Encounter online copy of 6th edition
13. ^ See online re-create of sixth edition
14. ^ Run across online copy of sixth edition
15. ^ See onlike copy of sixth edition
16. ^ Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman. HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.
17. ^ Kacirk, Jeffrey, Forgotten English language, 21 May (page)
18. ^ Hitchings 2005, London p. 87; New York p. 93
19. ^ Guide to Dictionary, Johnson's Lexicon Online]
20. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 198
21. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 200
22. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 198–9
23. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 199
24. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 203
25. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 221
26. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 222
27. ^ Handbook of Simplified Spelling. Simplified Spelling Board, 1920. p. 7
28. ^ Boswell, James (1791). "The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1". Sturgis & Walton. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
29. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755). "Network – A Dictionary of the English language Language". "Johnson's Lexicon Online" . Retrieved 9 July 2017.
30. ^ Walker, John (1791). A critical pronouncing lexicon and expositor of the English language ... To which are prefixed, principles of English pronunciation ... Too rules to exist observed past the natives of Scotland, Republic of ireland, and London, for avoiding their respective peculiarities; and directions to foreigners for acquiring a cognition of the utilize of this dictionary. The whole interspersed with observations, philological, critical, and grammatical. New York Public Library. London, Thousand.G.J. and J. Robinson. pp. iv–five.
31. ^ Walker, John (1791). A critical pronouncing dictionary and expositor of the English ... To which are prefixed, principles of English language pronunciation ... Likewise rules to be observed by the natives of Scotland, Ireland, and London, for fugitive their corresponding peculiarities; and directions to foreigners for acquiring a knowledge of the employ of this dictionary. The whole interspersed with observations, philological, critical, and grammatical. New York Public Library. London, G.Chiliad.J. and J. Robinson. pp. viii.
32. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 220
33. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 212
34. ^ Hitchings 2005, pp. 227–8
35. ^ A Dictionary, Spanish and English, and English language and Spanish, . .
36. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 223
37. ^ ^{a b} Hitchings 2005, p. 224
38. ^ Hitchings 2005, p. 225
39. ^ Hitchings 2005, pp. 226–7
40. ^ Hitchings 2005, pp. 229–31
41. ^ Crystal, David (2005). Samuel Johnson A Dictionary of the English language Language: An Anthology. London: Penguin Books. p. xxviii. ISBN978-0-14-144157-3.
42. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1807). Lexicon of the English language Language Bathetic from the Folio Edition (twelfth ed.). London: J. Johnson et al. p. Title Page.
43. ^ Lynch, Jack (2004). Samuel Johnson'south Dictionary. London: Atlantic Books. p. 17. ISBNone-84354-296-X.
44. ^ "A Lexicon of the English Language: A Digital Edition of the 1755 Classic by Samuel Johnson". Retrieved 21 November 2013.
45. ^ "The Preface on Project Gutenberg". one April 2004. Retrieved 15 Apr 2009 – via Project Gutenberg.
46. ^ "Volume one of the sixth edition". Retrieved 21 January 2010.
47. ^ "Volume two of the 6th edition". Retrieved 21 January 2010.

References [edit]

• Clifford, James Lowry (1979). Dictionary Johnson: Samuel Johnson's Middle Years. New York: McGraw-Loma.
• Collins, H. P. (1974) "The Nascency of the Dictionary." History Today (March 1974), Vol. 24 Issue 3, pp 197-203 online.
• Hitchings, Henry (2005). Dr Johnson's Lexicon: The Boggling Story of the Book That Defined the World. London: John Murray. ISBN0-7195-6631-two.
  • Us edition: Hitchings, Henry (2005). Defining the Globe: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN0-374-11302-5.
• Johnson, Samuel (1952). Chapman, R. W. (ed.). The Letters of Samuel Johnson. Oxford: Clarendon Printing.
• Johnson, Samuel (2002). Lynch, Jack (ed.). Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work that Divers the English Linguistic communication. Delray Beach, Florida: Levenger Press.
• Lane, Margaret (1975). Samuel Johnson and his World . New York: Harper & Row.
• Reddick, Allen (1996). The Making of Johnson's Dictionary 1746–1773. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Sledd, James H.; Kolb, Gwin J. (1955). Dr. Johnson's Dictionary: Essays in the biography of a volume. Chicago: Academy of Chicago Press.
• Wain, John (1976). Samuel Johnson. New York: McGraw-Loma.

External links [edit]

• Johnson'south Plan of a Dictionary of the English language (1747) at the Library of Congress.
• Johnson's Dictionary, first folio edition, 1755 : Volume I Volume II at the Pomeranian Digital Library.
• Johnson's Dictionary, sixth folio edition, 1785 : Volume 1 and Volume 2 at the Cyberspace Archive.
• Plan and Preface of A Dictionary of the English language Language public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• Spider web site : Samuel Johnson Dictionary Sources, an extensive examination of the sources of quotations in Johnson's Dictionary.
• Spider web site : searchable version of the 1st Folio edition of Johnson's Dictionary (partial transcription)
• Spider web site : HTML version of the 1756 abridged edition of Johnson'due south Dictionary (partial OCR)
• Article : Words count from The Guardian, Apr 2005.
• Web folio : A Brief History of English Lexicography; an HTML tabular array.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language

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