General Dictionary, Historical and Critical

The General Dictionary, Historical and Critical was a biographical dictionary published from 1734 to 1741 in London in 10 volumes. It derived from the Dictionnaire historique et critique of Pierre Bayle, already translated into English in 1710 by Pierre des Maizeaux as An Historical and Critical Dictionary,[1] but expanded the material with many biographies of English figures, this work being assigned largely to Thomas Birch.[2] The other two main editors were John Peter Bernard, whose efforts led to his admission as a Fellow of the Royal Society,[3] and John Lockman, who undertook a fresh translation of Bayle's work.[4]

The work has been described as the "first important ancestor" of the Dictionary of National Biography.[5] The publishers were Richard Chandler and Caesar Ward.[6]

Notes
  1. George Watson, The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: Volume 2; Volumes 1660-1800 (1971), p. 1969. Google Books
  2. Miller, David Philip. "Birch, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2436. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. Carter, Philip. "Bernard, John Peter". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2246. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. Sambrook, James. "Lockman, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16912. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. Thomas Birch and the "General Dictionary" (1734-41), James Marshall Osborn, Modern Philology, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Aug., 1938), pp. 25-46. https://www.jstor.org/pss/434476
  6. Dictionary of National Biography, Chandler, Richard (d. 1744), printer and bookseller, by H. R. Tedder. Published 1887.
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