Liddell and Scott in Historical Context

Abstract

‘Liddell and Scott has become so familiar to scholars of Greek that they tend to take it for granted. However, behind this monumental and impartial familiarity is a complex history of scholarly controversy and commercial book production. This chapter sets the first eight editions of the Lexicon (1843–97) in a number of contemporary contexts: the institutional and intellectual world of Oxford in the 1830s and 1840s; the emergence of classical dictionaries using vernaculars rather than Latin for glosses; the relationship of the Lexicon with other dictionaries; the development of the book through successive editions and abridgements; the reputation of the Lexicon; and its printing and publishing history. The chapter aims to explore these separate contexts, and to suggest how they interacted.