Early Modern English Lexicography: Volume I

Early Modern English Lexicography presents for the first time a census of printed monolingual glossaries and dictionaries published from 1475 to 1640, together with a systematic bibliographical description of these works. The lemmatical material is listed alphabetically and documented according to the criteria of the Oxford English Dictionary. A second volume compiles additions and corrections to the Oxford English Dictionary documentation never before published, anddiscusses in detail lexicographical aspects pertinent to assembling this material. More than 5,000 main entries comprise neologisms, antedatings, post-datings, unregistered senses, additional citations, and corrections. Special attention is devoted to the question of lexical transmission throughsources often overlooked in the Oxford English Dictionary. The volumes have been conceived as a specialized preliminary study of the growth and development of English lexicography in the Early Modern English period.

`These two beautifully produced volumes present an exciting new these on the origins of English lexicography ... This splendidly rich and thoroughly researched body of information is a major contribution to lexicography ... an essential tool for the compilers of OED.' Notes and Queries, 'The Introduction is noble and exciting, a tribute from a great German scholar too early dead.' Basil Cottle, Review of English Studies, Feb '92, 'Schäfer has not only written an immediately useful reference work, but his work has also put either editorial time or foundation money in the bank - in terms of producing an EME dictionary. The study of EME would be greatly advanced, the job of compiling an EME dictionary greatly facilitated, if more of us would devote time to work like Schäfer's. Early Modern English Lexicographyy is bedrock scholarship and will save many of us from building our houses on sand.' Michael Adams, Albright College, Modern Philology