ABSTRACT

There are several puzzles about the methods Johnson used to compile his Dictionary. Some were answered by Allen Reddick's admirable work on the Sneyd-Gimbel and British Library manuscripts, but much is still not known

about just how the first edition of the Dictionary was compiled: how the amanuenses went about copying out the illustrative quotations from the source texts, what they copied them into or onto initially, where they were stored until they were needed, how these were then incorporated into the text of the Dictionary, and how copy was sent to the printer.'