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In 1909, a federal court gave Merriam a victory by declaring that any “Webster’s dictionary” issued by Ogilvie or his successors must contain the following disclaimer on its title page: “This dictionary is not published by the original publishers of…

For the first time, Ogilvie issued a Webster dictionary listing himself as publisher and showing copyright notices (1904, 1905, and 1907) in his name. Meanwhile, in advertisements, he shouted that only his book was authentically derived from the pen…

In 1904, George W. Ogilvie founded United Dictionary Company and created photolithographic plates of Webster’s Brief International Dictionary [no. 3]—with plans to sell it in the U.S. He tried to capitalize on a technicality: the British publication…

Merriam licensed its London agent, the well-known London publisher George Bell & Sons, to issue a British abridgment of its 1890 flagship publication. (The same abridgment was published in the U.S. as Webster’s High School Dictionary.) The spine of…

Almost immediately after the 1847 version lost copyright protection, George W. Ogilvie began producing cheap photolithographic copies, calling it the “Famous Edition” of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. He charged as little as $1.45. Merriam filed…

Guests commemorating the august publication were given the large menu with their consommé vermicelli and fried breast of chicken. After the fact, in a smaller format, the proceedings were printed, including a list of attendees. At least four of Noah…

William Torrey Harris’s successor as chief editor of Merriam’s flagship dictionary was William Allan Neilson, a Scottish poetry expert and Shakespeare scholar who, in 1917, became president of Smith College. In 1924, he accepted an invitation to…