Complete Three-Volume Victorian Reference Set by John Ogilvie

Offered here is a complete three-volume set of The Imperial Dictionary, English, Technological, and Scientific, edited by John Ogilvie, LL.D., and published by Blackie & Son of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London.

This set consists of:

• Volume I (A–Izz) – 1854
• Volume II (Jac–Zyt) – 1854
• Supplement Volume – 1855

Profusely illustrated throughout with thousands of wood engravings and several full-page plates, including an impressive engraved reproduction of The School of Athens.

Description:

Published at the height of the Victorian Industrial Revolution, The Imperial Dictionary was among the most ambitious English-language reference works of its era. Based upon Webster's Dictionary but extensively enlarged and revised, it incorporated thousands of additional entries drawn from the rapidly expanding worlds of science, engineering, industry, medicine, natural history, literature, and the arts.

Unlike many earlier dictionaries, Ogilvie's work was heavily illustrated, making it both a scholarly reference and a visual encyclopaedia of nineteenth-century knowledge.

This complete set includes the desirable Supplement Volume, which contains extensive additions and revisions not included in the original two volumes.

Historical Significance:

The years 1854/1855 were a remarkable moment in history.

These volumes were published during the reign of Queen Victoria, when Britain stood at the centre of a rapidly industrializing world. Railways were transforming travel and commerce, steamships connected continents, telegraph lines carried messages across nations in minutes rather than weeks, and scientific discoveries were reshaping how people understood the natural world.

When these books appeared:

• The Crimean War was underway.
• The American Civil War had not yet begun.
• The telephone, electric light bulb, automobile, and airplane had not yet been invented.
• Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was still several years from publication.
• The Oxford English Dictionary did not yet exist.

The dictionary therefore captures a fascinating snapshot of mid-nineteenth-century knowledge at a time when technology and science were advancing at an unprecedented pace. Many terms included here represented the cutting edge of Victorian engineering, medicine, natural history, and industry.

For collectors of Victorian books, industrial history, scientific literature, and the history of the English language, this set represents an important landmark reference work.

Features:

• Complete three-volume set
• Published 1854-1855
• Edited by John Ogilvie, LL.D.
• Thousands of wood-engraved illustrations
• Full-page engraved plates
• Extensive technical and scientific terminology
• Supplement volume present
• Attractive nineteenth-century bindings
• Excellent decorative library display

Condition:

• The binding does not seem to be original. But likely from the early 20th century.
• Bindings remain sound and attractive.
• Interior pages are generally clean and bright.
• Illustrations and plates are present.
• Expected age-related wear, rubbing, toning, and minor imperfections consistent with nineteenth-century use.
• Please examine photographs carefully as they form part of the description.

This set would make an excellent addition to:

• Antiquarian book collections
• Victorian libraries
• Scientific and engineering history collections
• Lexicography and language collections
• Decorative libraries and studies
• Academic institutions and museums