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Several studies of Johnson's revisions of his publications have disposed of the old belief that his care for his writings ceased when they originally left his pen. The interest of these studies has been chiefly in enabling us to see the process by which the final form of each text—the form in which we are familiar with it—was attained; only rarely has a knowledge of Johnson's revisions enabled editors to arrive at readings superior to those in the traditional texts.[1] Johnson's revisions of his Preface to the Dictionary of the English Language present a more complex and instructive case. While noteworthy, like his other revisions, in displaying a great stylist at work, these revisions have an additional significance for the establishment of the true text of the Preface. For Johnson revised the Preface twice, making an independent set of alterations each time. And only one of these sets of revisions has been incorporated in the versions of the Preface printed since the eighteenth century.
Four folio editions of the Dictionary appeared during Johnson's lifetime. The first edition was published in 1775; the second closely followed, the first volume late in 1775 and the second early in 1756; the third edition was published in 1765; and the fourth in 1773. All the subsequent texts of the Preface contain variations from the first edition both in such "accidentals" as spelling and punctuation, and in "substantive" readings directly affecting the sense. It is the purpose of this study to record these
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