The rise of the dictionaries

The early modern period of English is that which is taken to have begun at the end of the middle period, conventionally set at the year 1476 when printing was introduced by William Caxton.After Johnson, English lexicography became increasingly concerned with the entire language in all its complexity. Johnson’s prodigious labor meant his was to become the first standard dictionary — the first to be authoritative, the first to settle arguments. No earlier English lexicographer achieved a comparabl