Derwent Coleridge's "Rough Notes": A Newly Discovered Manuscript from the Formative Years of the Oxford English Dictionary

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The part played by Herbert Coleridge, first editor of the New English Dictionary of the Philological Society of London (later the Oxford English Dictionary), in the genesis of this great lexicographical project, and in the formulation of the dictionary's editorial policy during its earliest phase, is well known. The contributions made by his uncle, Derwent Coleridge, are much less well known. A newly identified manuscript reveals him to have played a major role in the composition of the "Canones Lexicographici," the first extended statement of editorial policy for the proposed dictionary; a full transcription of this manuscript is here presented, with notes, and an introduction exploring the interrelationships between Derwent, Herbert, and other members of the Coleridge family, several of whom were also actively engaged with English philology.