List of Links - The History of English Dictionaries

Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/ret/cawdrey/cawdrey0.html#d
An online transcription organized by Raymond G. Siemens of the first English dictionary (A Table Alphabeticall, by Robert Cawdrey), published in 1604.

Not a Word

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/08/29/050829ta_talk_alford
Article from New Yorker magazine on the Virginia Mountweazel story and false entries in dictionaries.

Guide to Samuel Johnson
http://ethnicity.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/Guide/
An online guide to Samuel Johnson, author of Dictionary of the English Language (1755), written by the specialist Jack Lynch, editor of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work That Defined the English Language (New York: Walker & Company, 2004).

How Johnson's Dictionary Became the First Dictionary

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Papers/firstdict.html
Transcription of a lecture by Jack Lynch delivered on August, 25, 2005 at the Johnson and the English Language conference, Birmingham.

Disgraced by Miscarriage: Four and a Half Centuries of Lexicographical Belligerence
 http://ejbe.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/jrul/article/view/782/2005
Article on pdf format written by Jack Lynch on the quarrels that have made the history of English dictionaries.

Did one man write the first great English dictionary all by himself? Not quite, but close

http://hotword.dictionary.com/johnson/
Article on dictionary.com about Samuel Johnson.

Words Count
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/apr/02/classics.wordsandlanguage
An article on Samuel Johnson from British newspaper The Guardian on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Johnson's dictionary.

The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page
http://www.samueljohnson.com/index.html
A collection of Samuel Johnson quotations and also articles on Johnson's biograhpy, his political views, a time line, pictures and a list of books by and about him. The page brings the information that Johnson is the second most quoted person in the English language, after Shakespeare.

Johnson's Dictionary Online
http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com
An ongoing and extensive project of digitalization of Samuel Johnson's dictionary. It also offers materials on Johnson's life and work, on the history of English language and on grammar.

On Language: Lexicographer
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/magazine/14ONLANGUAGE.html
A NY Times article on the Lexicographer profession.

JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY.; Samuel's, Also, but an American Work and the First
http://query.nytimes.co/gst/abstract.html?res=9D0DEEDB1030E333A25756C1A9669D94699ED7CF
A 1898 article from the New York Times about the 100th anniversary of the first American dictionary

The First American Dictionary: Johnson or Webster?
http://blog.oup.com/2009/01/samuel-johnson/
Post on the Oxford University Press's blog about the first American dictionary and the misconception envolving Noah Webster.

Dictionary Society of North America
http://www.dictionarysociety.com/
The site of the Dictionary Society of North America, an organization that brings together people interested in dictionary making, study, collection, and use.

At the Dictionary Society of North America, words matter — a lot
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/06/11/at-the-dictionary-society-of-north-america-words-matter-%E2%80%94%C2%A0a-lot/
A National Post article on the Dictionary Society of North America

English Dictionaries by Dr. Alec Gill MBE

http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cetag/1idictionaries.htm
The site presents a brief timeline of the history of English dictionaries and texts on the more important ones. The author is Dr. Alec Gill, an historian, university lecturer, video producer, free-lance writer, psychologist and public speaker.

Philological Society of London
http://www.philsoc.org.uk/
The Society responsible for the project that ended up in the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary

Trench Anniversary, by Peter Gilliver, Associate Editor of OED 

http://www.philsoc.org.uk/history.asp
Article written by Peter Gilliver, Associate Editor of OED, on Richard Chenevix Trench (file in word format available for download after clicking on "Trench" in the left column)

History of the OED 
http://www.oed.com/public/oedhistory
Article on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary

Origins of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (1857) 

http://www.historyofinformation.com/index.php?id=3400

Article on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary
http://my-bankruptcy-help.com/?b=Oxford_English_Dictionary#cite_note-2
Article on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary

History of the Oxford English Dictionary, OED
http://wordinfo.info/unit/4420/ip:4/il:H
Article on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary
http://my-bankruptcy-help.com/?b=Oxford_English_Dictionary#cite_note-2
Article on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/dnb/35163.html
Biography of James Murray by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

The Origin of – Oxford Dictionary
http://www.theoriginof.com/oxford-dictionary.html
Article on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary

The Meaning of Everything – Review
http://www.ralphmag.org/CI/oed.html
Article on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary

How a new word enters the Oxford English Dictionary:
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/02/how-new-word-enters-dictionary/
Curious fact: new words and the Oxford Dictionary

About the OED
http://oed.com/public/about;jsessionid=4DEC019A8646FA6178E3066784268FB1
Official version of the Oxford English Dictionary history

Early English Text Society
http://library.truman.edu/microforms/english_text.asp
Article on the society founded in 1864 by Frederick Furnivall to republish unprinted early English literature to help with the quotation selection for the Oxford Dictionary. It reprinted works that in the time were already printed elsewhere but were unobtainable except in limited and expensive editions.

The Dictionary Wars - Noah Webster
http://www.historyhouse.com/c/in_history/?webster
Article on the "dictionary war" between G. & C. Merriam and Noah Webster. It has a part II and a part III.

British Library
http://www.bl.uk/
Institution that houses every publication in Britain and includes a museum.

Noah Webster, Founding Father
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/books/review/book-review-the-forgotten-founding-father-noah-websters-obsession-and-the-creation-of-an-american-culture-by-joshua-kendall.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Article on Noah Webster and his work.

The Webster House and West Hartford Historical Society
http://noahwebsterhouse.org/discover/noah-webster-history.htm
Museum set up at the house where Noah Webster was born. Plenty of biographical information about him.

Noah Webster's Conservative Radicalism
http://mje.mcgill.ca/index.php/MJE/article/view/7578/5508
Article by Sandra Tomkin for the McGill Journal of Education