A Compendious and Comprehensive Law Dictionary [1816]

<p class=ql-align-center>With a New Introduction by Bryan A. Garner</p><p></p><p class=ql-align-justify>One of several English dictionaries published in the early nineteenth century Williams's stands out for three reasons. Unlike its predecessors and presumably its competitors this dictionary was designed as a practical everyday reference work. It has a smaller physical size more entries and for many of these shorter definitions.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>This dictionary marks an important stage toward the evolution of the modern law dictionary: it is half dictionary half encyclopedia. (...) Williams may have been ahead of his time in producing a handy quarto edition of a law dictionary. Apart from various editions of <em>Termes de la Ley</em> huge folios such as those by Jacob and Cunningham seem to have been the order of the day. It wasn't until precisely a century after Williams - with the publication of James A. Ballentine's <em>Law Dictionary</em> - that short small law dictionaries gained popularity. In some sense Williams's work might be considered a predecessor of today's pocket law dictionaries.</p><p></p><p class=ql-align-right>Bryan A. Garner</p><p class=ql-align-right>From the Introduction to this Edition</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Thomas Walter Williams [1763-1833] was a barrister of the Inner Temple. He didn't have much success as a pleader so he established himself with considerable success as a legal writer. In addition to his dictionary he wrote manuals for justices of the peace compiled abridgments and digests and edited an edition of William Sheppard's <em>Precedent of Precedents</em>.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Unpaginated [1022] pp.</p>