A01=Linda C. Mitchell
A01=Linda Mitchell
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Linda C. Mitchell
Author_Linda Mitchell
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DS
Category=DSB
Category=DSBD
Category=HBG
Category=HBTB
Category=NHB
Category=NHTB
censorship in publishing
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
Dictionaries
early modern England
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Format=BB
Format_Hardback
forthcoming
gender and language studies
historical linguistics
Language_English
lexicographic authority
PA=Available
Price_€100 and above
PS=Active
reference works history
social history of dictionaries
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9780754658283
- Format: Hardback
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 31 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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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 construction of lexicographic authority; how the reader depended on dictionaries for travel information; the inclusion of history and mythology in dictionaries and what this kind of information meant to the reading public, including the extent to which historical accounts were biased. Mitchell explores the relative ease with which dictionaries evaded censorship, showing how some lexicographers used their dictionaries to promulgate their views on gender, religion, and politics. Finally, she discusses how far we have traveled from early dictionaries to the present state of lexicography, tracing the legacy of old dictionaries in modern-day electronic dictionaries. Broadly based on archival research in rare-book libraries, the study considers approximately 300 primary texts, including not only dictionaries, but also traditional grammars, encyclopedias, and other manuals (e.g., almanacs). Mitchell examines material which frames the systematic lexicographical presentations at any one time: prefaces, introductions, forewords, statements of intent, organization of materials, as well as definitions themselves.
Linda C. Mitchell is Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San José State University, USA
