PDF version - Cunningham Memorial Library - Indiana State University

PREFACE
This checklist and publishing history contains references to dictionaries, vocabularies, and
glossaries published separately or as part of larger works. They have been entered in this
bibliography by main entry and then traced through their various editions and reprintings.
Dictionaries published into the modem era, i.e., after 1750, have been entered by the first known
impression. No attempt has been made to trace various impressions. as this information would
be practically impossible to gather with any accuracy from public records.
Included in the checklist are works intended as a ready reference and arranged according to
some scheme which aids the user in finding words quickly. Excluded from the bibliography are
works that may be used as dictionaries or have some of the properties of a dictionary, e.g., an
alphabetical arrangement, but with a clearly different purpose. For example, some works list
words in categories or alphabetically but were meant to be read as a part in an encyclopedia or
handbook. Other works provide a discussion ofattributes ofwords--a frequent example is moral
aspect--while ignoring or skirting meaning. Also excluded are works which were published
before 1501 but transformed into a dictionary only after the end of incunable period. Thus
Altenstaig's dictionary and the Vocabulary in French and English have been excluded from this
bibliography because they either did not define words or failed to provide adequate access to
words until after the end of 1500.
A list of works which either became dictionaries or have been identified as dictionaries
according to a loose definition by historians has been included as an appendix. While I do not
feel that this list of excluded word books and philological texts is complete, it is substantial and
might provoke some other compiler to'trace their publishing history, especially as many such
works are important sources of philological information or affected the history oflexicography.
Arrangement of the bibliography is straightforward: by the main entry and, within each
citation, date; publication data, including in brackets the name of the printer when different from
the publisher, title; sources; and notes. General dates precede specific dates. Where there is a
duplication of date, place ofpublication determines the order; then publisher. The simplest form
of the title found in citations has been used; no attempt has been made to reproduce complete
Latin titles, both since frequently these data were not given in all the available sources and, even
. when found, varied greatly from source to source. Individuals curious about longer forms of
titles should consult the cited sources, although in numerous instances, this approach may not
provide adequate information, especially beyond the incunable period. Generally, the simplest
yet most complete form of the publisher's name has been assembled from the more than 20