John Richardson

Who is John Richardson?

John Richardson, FAS of Wadham College, Oxford, was the editor of the first Persian-Arabic-English dictionary in 1778-1780. His seminal work on Persian grammar, written in collaboration with Sir William Jones, was noteworthy amongst the early works on this subject; and it remains significant in the context of that philological foundation from which all subsequent grammatical studies were to evolve.

Richardson's scholarly compilation was organized in a format similar to Mesgnien-Meninski's Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalis, Turcicæ, Arabicæ, Persicæ.

Each book in the two-volume set was sold separately; many more of the first part were sold than the second part. When booksellers found themselves with an overstock of first edition broken sets, a greater number of copies of the second edition's first book were printed.

Richardson's ground-breaking scholarship was more broadly disseminated in Charles Wilkins' several revised versions of the dictionary. Subsequent work by the 19th century philologists Francis Johnson, Francis Joseph Steingass and others ensured that Richardson's name continued to be well known as an orientalist and as a scholar.