Robert Keith Leavitt

An interesting (to me, at least) description of the creation of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary - from Webster's original efforts, creating the last one-man dictionary and updating it several times, to the luck and good choices that allowed his dictionary to become an ongoing project rather than stopping when he died. His family sold the rights to the dictionary to the Merriam brothers, printers and bookbinders, who were looking for a long-term project - the dictionary, and the updating of the dictionary, more than fulfilled that need. The Dictionary Wars, where a rival author worked to persuade buyers and dictionary users that his was the better book, and the details of how the updates were created, collated, edited, and released, make fascinating reading (I see a lot of parallels, and some differences, with the OED - there's several books about that and how it gets updated) if you like this sort of thing. There's also interesting parts about the physical aspects of the records that go to make up the dictionary - huge rows of file cabinets containing little slips of paper with words, definitions, and citations. Written in 1947 - I wonder how long it took them to switch to computer records. The last chapter, describing all the individuals who've driven the updates - the presidents of the Merriam-Webster Corporation, and the editors in chief and managing editors of each edition - gets a little less interesting; it becomes more of a company history (and the company could be almost anything) rather than a history of the dictionary itself. Not bad, just a little less fun than the earlier sections. I'm not sure how/why this was written - was it a company history, initiated by the Merriam-Webster Corporation? Was it just that Leavitt was as interested in dictionaries as I am? In any case, I'm glad it was written and I found it. Not sure I'll reread - but I might, it was a quick fun read.
ETA - aha, there's nothing in the book itself to mark it but searching for it online, someone (AbeBooks? Can't find it again) had it as commissioned by Merriam - so it is a company history.… (mehr)