A Dictionary of the English Language

No book-club edition exists for a 1755 folio. Documented reprint tells, in the order a donor is likely to hold them: (1) the 1756 two-volume OCTAVO abridgment — physically small, and the title-page itself announces the abridgment; (2) the second edition in 165 weekly numbers (1755-56) and later 18th-century folios (the fourth edition of 1773 is Johnson's own revision and is separately noteworthy, but it is not the first); (3) 19th-century "Johnson's Dictionary" derivatives, above all H. J. Todd's revised octavo editions and the many Walker/Todd hybrids sold under Johnson's name — these are revisions by other hands, not Johnson's text; (4) modern facsimiles and Folio Society reproductions, identifiable by modern paper, a publisher's slipcase and a 20th/the printed pricet-century copyright notice. If the book is not a large folio with the 1755 Strahan/Knapton conger imprint, it is not the first edition.