ABSTRACT
The publication in 1884 of the first volume of the New English Dictionary was the most significant event in English lexicography. This publication marked establishment of the career of the philologist Henry Bradley, a career in many ways characteristic of the educational ideals of his time. Bradley was largely self-educated. He had married in 1872, and Bradley was able to rely on his reputation with the editors of literary journals to make sure him some income. Bradley wrote the review of the NED which quoted here, and which brought him to attention of the dictionary's chief editor, leading eventually to his own occupation of that post and a DLitt from the Oxford University. His work on the dictionary occupied much of his time after 1889 until his death in 1923. The latter has remained in print until the present day. It is now nearly twenty-seven years since the philological society commenced collection of materials for its great English Dictionary.
