Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

Introduction. xlix
great deal more. The result of all this work was that I filled many
boxes and drawers with slips on each of which a word was written,
with its certain or problematical meaning, and a reference to the
text or monument where it was to be found. In 1908 I had
written over three hundred thousand slips, and in spite of the
constant help of my wife in arranging them and in making incor-
porations, I realised that the publication of such a mass of material
was impossible. No one man could write the fair copy of it for
press, and no publisher could afford to undertake its publication.
I therefore set to work to revise the slips, and to destroy all that
had redundant references, and references to words the meanings
of which were commonly accepted. In this revision I got rid of
more than one-half of the slips, but even then the compilation Revisions
was far too large, and further revision was necessary. I then c
cut out all the numerous quotations from texts, and nearly all
comments, abbreviated the references to published works, and,
at the risk of making a somewhat bald Egyptian Vocabulary,
eschewed, except in very rare cases, any attempt to discuss
theoretical renderings of words. This second revision was completed
in 1913, and the slips which I proposed to print numbered
nearly 28,500.
The question of publication then arose. During the early
stages of the writing of this Dictionary an understanding
existed between Mr. Blackett, Manager of Messrs. Kegan,
Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., and myself that his firm would
endeavour to include it among their publications, but by the
time the manuscript was ready for the printer, he had left their Difficulty of
service, and they were not in a position to fulfil his wish. I talked finding a
the matter over with Mr. Horace Hart, Printer to the Oxford
University Press, and showed him the manuscript of the
Dictionary, and, having made a rough calculation of the probable
cost of printing it, he came to the conclusion that no publisher
ought to undertake the work without a subsidy. He thought p rinting in
that the cost of production might be lowered by printing it in Vienna
Vienna, and spoke highly
of the Austrian firm of Messrs. Adolf
Holzhausen, who had already printed several books of mine,
and with whose excellent typography I was well acquainted.
Further enquiry made by me among printers and publishers
showed the .
correctness of Mr. Hart's opinion, and I accepted it
as final. I decided that it was unwise to attempt to reproduce
my manuscript by lithography, because works of reference
printed by lithography are often very unsatisfactory and difficult