Allibone

Allibone, SAMUEL AUSTIN, LL.D., bibliographer, was born in Philadelphia, April 17, 1816. At first engaged in mercantile pursuits, he was an earnest student of English literature, which bore fruit in 1853, when he began his Critical Dictionary of English Literature and of British and American Authors (3 vols. 1858–70–71), containing in all notices of 46,499 authors. The second and third volumes greatly surpassed the first in accuracy and completeness. In 1891 a supplement in two volumes, containing entries of 93,780 works, was published by J. Foster Kirk; beginning where the original work left off (in A to O in 1850, in O to Z in 1870; see BIBLIOGRAPHY). Dr Allibone also published an Alphabetical Index to the New Testament (1869); Poetical Quotations (1873); Prose Quotations (1876); Great Authors of All Ages (1879). In 1879 he became head of the Lenox Library, New York; and he died at Lucerne, 2d September 1889.