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Noah Webster's name is now synonymous with the dictionary he created, but his story is not nearly as ubiquitous. Webster hobnobbed with various founding fathers and was a young confidant of George Washington and Ben Franklin. He started New York's first daily newspaper, predating Alexander Hamilton's New York Post. His "blue-backed speller" for schoolchildren sold millions of copies and influenced early copyright law. But perhaps most important, Webster was an ardent supporter of a unified, definitively American culture, distinct from the British, at a time when the United States of America were anything but unified -- and his dictionary of American English is a testament to that. - Back cover.

From the author of "The Man Who Made Lists" comes an absorbing biography of Noah Webster, whose name is synonymous with the dictionary he created, but whose life story is not nearly so ubiquitous.

George Washington's cultural attachâe : the definer of American identity

From farmboy to best-selling author. Hartford childhood and Yale manhood ; Spelling the new nation ; Traveling salesman

Founding father. Counting his way across America ; Courtship at the Constitutional Convention ; Marriage and a turn away from words ; Editor of New York City's first daily

Lexicographer. Setting his sights on Johnson and Johnson, Jr. ; Paterfamilias ; A lost decade ; The walking dictionary ; "More fleshy than ever before"

Webster's after Webster : the director of defining.

Lexicographers > United States > Biography.

English language > United States > Lexicography.

Social reformers > United States > Biography.