Timeline
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary Timeline
1400
January 1
January 1
Geoffrey Chaucer, the earliest author cited in SJ’s Dictionary, dies
1460
1538
June 16
June 16
The Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght, a Latin–English work, is the first English printed book with dictionary in its title
No Video URL Provided
1564
April 16
April 16
William Shakespeare, the most quoted author in the Dictionary, is born in Stratford-upon-Avon
1565
June 16
June 16
Thomas Cooper publishes Thesaurus linguae Romanæ & Britannicæ, an important Latin–English dictionary
1566
June 16
June 16
John Withals publishes A Shorte Dictionarie for Yonge Beginners Gathered of Good Authours, a Latin–English dictionary for children
1572
June 16
June 16
Henri Estienne publishes his Thesaurus linguae graecae, a major Greek–Latin lexicon
No Video URL Provided
1580
June 16
June 16
Sir Philip Sidney begins his first major work, Astrophel and Stella; in the Dictionary SJ writes, “I have fixed Sidney’s work for the [early] boundary, beyond which I make few excursions”
1604
June 16
June 16
Robert Cawdrey publishes A Table Alphabeticall, the first monolingual English dictionary
No Video URL Provided
1611
June 16
June 16
The King James Version of the Bible is published; it is the most quoted work in the Dictionary
No Video URL Provided
June 16
June 16
El Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, the first general monolingual Spanish dictionary, is published
No Video URL Provided
1612
June 16
June 16
The Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, the first great European dictionary produced by a national academy, is published in Florence
No Video URL Provided
1616
June 16
June 16
William Bullokar publishes An English Expositor: Teaching the Interpretation of the Hardest Words Used in Our Language, with Sundry Explications, Descriptions and Discourses, the second monolingual English dictionary
No Video URL Provided
1623
June 16
June 16
Henry Cockeram publishes The English Dictionarie; or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words, an example of the tradition of “hard-word” dictionaries
No Video URL Provided
June 16
June 16
William Shakespeare’s colleagues publish Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, known as the “First Folio”
1656
June 16
June 16
Thomas Blount publishes Glossographia; or, A Dictionary Interpreting the Hard Words of Whatsoever Language, Now Used in Our Refined English Tongue
No Video URL Provided
1658
June 16
June 16
Edward Phillips publishes The New World of Words; or, A General Dictionary, the first English dictionary published in the large folio format; around half its entries are plagiarized from Blount’s Glossographia
No Video URL Provided
1660
May 16
May 16
Charles II is restored to the throne after eleven years in which England had no king; Johnson focuses most of his attention on the language of “the writers before the restoration”
1667
June 16
June 16