Jonathan Swift’s Word-Book

In about 1710 Jonathan Swift prepared a list of some 2,000 “hard words” with definitions for his friend Esther Johnson (“Stella”). The original has vanished, but Johnson’s transcription with Swift’s corrections survives. The manuscript was bought in 1976 by A. C. Elias, who made a good start on a scholarly edition. Recognizing he would die before completing the work, Elias passed it on to John Irwin Fischer in the hope that he would finish it. But Fischer too died without completing the edition, and it fell to Fischer’s wife, Panthea Reid, to bring it across the finish line. The volume reveals these eccentric origins: the 70-page glossary is surrounded by a variety of introductory essays and six appendixes—all by four scholars, Elias, Fischer, Reid, and Ann Cline Kelly, who do not always see eye to eye…. [T]he dictionary deserves attention as the only significant work by Swift previously in print. It is valuable, too, for the insight it gives into Swift’s writings of that period, especially A Tale of a Tub, and for the great volume of commentary on Johnson. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. * CHOICE *