The Authoritative Word: The Cultural History of Dictionaries in England 1600-1800

As this lively new study effectively demonstrates, dictionaries serve as far more than just simple reference tools-they also offer a rich fund of information about people in society. Before now, the extent to which dictionaries encode social history, as opposed to merely relaying linguistic information, has gone almost entirely unnoticed. In this illuminating new book, Linda C. Mitchell analyzes the complex and changing relationship in the early modern period between authority and lexicographers: she identifies ways in which lexicographers constructed their authority, examines the link between the conservative and the subversive in dictionaries, and finally, charts the shift of linguistic authority from grammarians to lexicographers. In the introduction to this study, the author surveys the history of organization in dictionaries, including how their very order constructs authority. Subsequent chapters explore such intriguing topics as the role played by personalities in the constructi