Samuel Austin Allibone

Samuel Austin Allibone (April 17 1816 - September 2 1889) was an American author and bibliographer.

He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of French Huguenot and Quaker ancestry. He was privately educated and for many years was engaged in mercantile business in his native city. He, however, devoted himself chiefly to reading and to bibliographical research; acquired a very unusual knowledge of English and American literature, and is remembered as the compiler of the well-known "Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors" (3 vols. in royal octavo: vol. i. 1854, vols. ii. and iii. 1871). The "Critical Dictionary" was projected by George W. Childs, owner of the Philaldephia "Public Ledger", and cost over $60,000. [Barrows, C. "Acts and Anecdotes of Authors", 1887] It comprised an alphabetical author index of over 46,000 authors; the third volume included 40 subject-classified lists of authors. Two supplementary volumes, edited by John Foster Kirk, were added in 1891.

Allibone was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. ["The National cyclopaedia of American biography", 1898] . He was criticized by the "Catholic World" in 1872 for his alleged unfairness to Catholics, especially in relation to literature about Mary Queen of Scots. [Barrows, C. "Acts and Anecdotes of Authors", 1887]

From 1867 to 1873, and again in 1877-1879, Allibone was book editor and corresponding secretary of the American Sunday School Union; and from 1879 to 1888 he was librarian of the Lenox Library in New York City. He died at Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1889. In addition to his "Critical Dictionary" he published three large anthologies and several religious tracts. He contributed to the "North American Review", the "Evangelical Review" and other periodicals.

Works

*"A Review by a Layman of a Work entitled 'New Themes for the Protestant Clergy"', 1852
*" 'New Themes' Condemned", 1853
*"Explanatory Questions on the Gospels and the Acts", 1869
*"A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors", 3 vols (1858, 1871)
*"Alphabetical Index to the New Testament", 1869.
*"Union Bible Companion", 1871 (with first part published separately as "The Divine Origin of the Holy Scriptures")
*"Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson", 1873
*"Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay", 1875
*"Great Authors of All Ages", 1879

References

*Samuel D. McConnell, "In memory of S. Austin Allibone, A.M., LL. D", Philadelphia, 1890. Address delivered before the Historical Society of Philadelphia.

*1911

External links

*worldcat id|lccn-n50-22995
*"A Critical Dictionary", [http://www.archive.org/details/criticaldictiona01allirich Vol. I (A-H)] at the Internet Archive; there are also versions of Vol. II and Vol. III available, but they are not so well scanned.