Specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias, 1650-1800: a tribute to Frank Kafker

Abstract

"During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the number of specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias grew from a trickle to a flood, while the number of disciplines they were devoted to grew from a handful to dozens, representing many varieties of knowledge. Specialized dictionaries as most were called, whether lexical or encyclopedic were far more numerous than general encyclopedias. Yet despite their importance as sources of knowledge, for example, and as definers of disciplines they have not been much studied. Drawing on Frank Kafker's methods for studying the period's general encyclopedias, as pioneered in Notable Encyclopedias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1981), this volume examines specialized dictionaries as commercial products, collections of content, and cultural artifacts. Specifically, it complements a wide-ranging, analytical introduction sketching out the characteristics of specialized dictionaries in general with a series of individually authored but standardized case studies. The latter deal with dictionaries on a variety of disciplines, from the Bible to mining, and in five European languages. The volume concludes with an essay on Frank Kafker's influence on historiography." -- Back cover.

Contents

Introduction / Jeff Loveland and Stéphane Schmitt -- Antoine Augustin Calmet's Dictionnaire historique, critique, chronologique, géographique et littéral de la Bible (1719) / Kathleen Hardesty Doig -- Etienne Chauvin's Lexicon rationale (1692) and Lexicon philosophicum (1713) / Giuliano Gasparri -- A medicinal dictionary (1743-1745) by Robert James: an Enlightenment reference work / Alexander Wright and R. W. McConchie -- John Barrow's Dictionarium polygraphicum (1735) / Craig Hanson -- Noël Chomel's Dictionnaire oeconomique (1709) / Clorinda Donato -- Jacques-Christophe Valmont de Romare's Dictionnaire raisonné universel d'histoire naturelle (1764) / Stéphane Schmitt -- The Reales Staats- und Zeitungs-Lexicon (1704) / Jeff Loveland -- The Curieuses Natur- Kunst- Gewerck- und Handlungs-Lexicon (1712) / Ines Prodöhl -- The Dictionnaire universel de commerce (1723-1730) / Jeff Loveland -- Nicolas Desroches's Dictionnaire des termes proes de marine (1687); a linguistic tool for seafarers? / Élisabeth Ridel-Granger and Michel Daeffler -- Sven Rinman's Bergwerks lexicon (1788-1789) and the emergence of mining encyclopedias in preindustrial Europe / Linn Holmberg -- Frank Kafker and the social history of eighteenth-century encyclopedism / Gregory S. Brown and Melanie Conroy -- Appendix: bibliography of specialized encyclopedias and dictionaries, 1650-1800.