Periodical Evidence for the Original Publication of Richardson’s New Dictionary of the English Language

Abstract

Charles Richardson’s New Dictionary of the English Language is a work of great importance for the history of lexicography, but the dates of its first serial publication from 1818 onwards among the 59 instalments of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana appear never to have been ascertained. They are worked out here, together with the alphabetical ranges of many instalments, from announcements in contemporary periodicals such as the Athenaeum, the Morning Chronicle, and The Times, and are followed by extracts from the first reviews of the dictionary in the same periodicals.