author
Frederick James Furnivall
1825–1910
A driving force behind the early Oxford English Dictionary, this energetic Victorian scholar helped make medieval English literature newly accessible to modern readers. He was also famous for founding societies, editing texts on a huge scale, and bringing unusual personal vigor to literary study.
1 Audiobook
The Babees' Book: Medieval Manners for the Young
by Frederick James Furnivall
About the author
Born in Egham, Surrey, in 1825, Frederick James Furnivall trained in law but turned his attention to philology, textual scholarship, and social reform. He became one of the key figures behind the project that began as the New English Dictionary and later became the Oxford English Dictionary.
Furnivall is especially remembered for founding the Early English Text Society and several other literary societies devoted to writers and traditions such as Chaucer, ballads, Shakespeare, Browning, and Shelley. Through these groups, and through his own editing work, he helped spark a wider revival of interest in medieval and early English literature.
He died in London in 1910, leaving behind a reputation for immense energy, enthusiasm, and scholarly productivity. Even where later editors refined or corrected his work, his role in organizing texts, readers, and fellow scholars made him an important builder of modern English literary study.