Announcing the Dictionary: Front Matter in the Three Editions of Furetière’s Dictionnaire Universel

The front matter of a dictionary provides important information as to the background to a work and what is to be expected inside. Although they can be read as standalone texts, it is only when linked to the actual dictionary content that their full potential is realised. This is very much the case for the prefaces to Furetière’s Dictionnaire Universel, first published posthumously in 1690 and then to go through two major revisions in 1701 and 1725/27. As Furetière left no preface, we start with his factums, texts that details his fight with the Académie Française who wanted to impede publication. We then have the preface by Bayle of 1690 and then the front matter produced by the two revisers, Basnage de Beauval and Brutel de la Rivière. This was a highly innovative dictionary as both an encyclopaedic work and one with a pedagogical intention. We explore the declarations in the prefaces and the encyclopaedic and linguistic content concentrating on the 1701 edition that is currently being fully digitised in XML-TEI. Citations from largely contemporary texts were used to illustrate entries leading to a very wide knowledge network of late seventeenth century science. Basnage also experimented in illustrating usage through examples, grammatical and pronunciation information.