A collection of original essays celebrating the 250th anniversary of the publication of the Dictionary.

List of illustrations; List of contributors; List of abbreviations and cue-titles; Introduction Jack Lynch and Anne McDermott; 1. The mythology of Johnson's Dictionary Paul J. Korshin; 2. Dictionaries and power from Palsgrave to Johnson Ian Lancashire; 3. What Johnson's illustrative quotations illustrate: language and viewpoint in the Dictionary Howard D. Weinbrot; 4. Reassessing the political context of the Dictionary: Johnson and the 'Broad-bottom' opposition Nicholas Hudson; 5. Johnson's extempore history and grammar of the English language Robert DeMaria Jr; 6. Johnson the prescriptivist? The case for the prosecution Geoff Barnbrook; 7. Johnson the prescriptivist? The case for the defense Anne McDermott; 8. Johnson's encyclopedia Jack Lynch; 9. The law, the alphabet, and Samuel Johnson John Stone; 10. Hyphenated compounds in Johnson's Dictionary Noel E. Osselton; 11. The typographic design of Johnson's Dictionary Paul Luna; 12. The Dictionary in abstract: Johnson's abridgements of the Dictionary of the English Language for the common reader Catherine Dille; 13. Revision and the limits of collaboration: hands and texts in Johnson's Dictionary Allen Reddick; 14. Hidden quarto editions of Johnson's Dictionary R. Carter Hailey; General index; Index of Dictionary entries.