Bibliography to the Second Edition

This list comprises the titles of such works as have been most commonly quoted in the Dictionary. It represents a conflation of the two bibliographies already in existence: that of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published, together with the original Supplement, in 1933, and that of A Supplement to the OED, published in Volume IV of that work in 1986. Apart from emendations arising directly out of the integration of the two lists, and the correction of miscellaneous minor errors, no systematic revision of the bibliography to the first edition has been attempted. While it has no claim to be regarded as a complete guide to English literature, this list will be found to contain a large proportion of the more important works, together with many others less familiar; it includes a large number of titles of periodical publications.

The arrangement is according to alphabetical order of authors’ names or titles of works. Following each title is the date of the first edition or of composition (ascertained or inferred). Where it is possible or necessary to give only a limiting date, such as that of an author’s death, or of a manuscript in which the work is extant, this is preceded by a (= ante), e.g. BACON Works a1626, King Horn a1300. As occasion requires, the dates of editions used other than the first, or the names of editors or of series of publications, are added within round brackets. Where a title (e.g. Arnolde’s Chronicle) is followed by a second title in brackets, the first is that by which the work is generally known, the second is its proper title. Round brackets are also occasionally used to indicate that the works are questionably assigned to the authors under whom they are entered.

Publications of learned institutions are listed here under the name of the institution; translations under the name of the translator (where known). The country or city of publication has not usually been given except for newspapers published outside London, and UK editions of books published in an earlier year abroad.

It is to be observed that the date assigned (in the early years of the history of the Dictionary) to some Middle English texts and to a few books of later date (e.g. the plays of Shakespeare), as also certain ascriptions of authorship, have been modified by subsequent research (the resulting discrepancies rarely affect in any serious degree the chronology of words and senses).

Abbreviations