Two rare dictionaries donated to the University Archives and Special Collections’ Rare Books Collection offer opportunities to engage with language study at two historical moments: the appearance of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language and, with a 16th-century printing of Hesychius of Alexandria’s Lexicon that originated in the fifth or sixth century CE, the revived study of Attic Greek literature in early modern Europe.
A two-volume 1756 edition of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language is the gift of John and Kathryn Pascoe. This early edition is the first in octavo format, smaller than the first edition in folio, with more pages printed for each sheet of paper (16 pages in octavo versus four in folio). This made the dictionary more affordable to produce — and to purchase — for those whom Johnson called “common readers,” whose need for dictionaries was primarily leisure reading and business writing rather than literary writing and criticism. To fit the format, Johnson “abstracted” entries, reducing many of the extensive quotations in the larger two-volume folio to the names of the authors.
Looking earlier, a 1521 edition of the Lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria — full title: Συναγωγὴ Πασῶν Λέξεων κατὰ Στοιχεῖον (Synagōgē pasōn lexeōn kata stoicheion, or Alphabetical Compilation of All Words) — further reveals the role of lexicography in early modern learning. Emma Barlow, who studied classics herself, donated the dictionary to the Libraries, adding a link to a chain of transmission going back to printer Thomas von Anshelm in 16th-century Hagenau, Germany; Aldus Manutius of Venice, the first printer, in collaboration with editor Marcus Musurus and Jacopo Bordellone, the owner of the only known copy of the manuscript, whom Manutius cited in his preface; and Hesychius himself, whose work preserved ancient and obscure words from original written works now lost.
Accepting the dictionaries was a straightforward decision knowing their potential in the classroom and the enduring importance of student interest. Brother Walter Roesch, S.M., the librarian who established the rare books and manuscripts collection, wrote in a letter in 1959 to Bernhard Bischoff, the German paleographer and philologist, that “each year we pick up something which we think will be of interest to the students.” Roesch’s acquisitions — like the Beissel Collection and a 15th-century Spanish antiphonary – have become cornerstones of special collections instruction, and we believe these dictionaries will, too.
— Henry Handley is an associate professor and the assistant director of the Marian Library and Special Collections.
