Samuel Austin Allibone (April 17, 1816 – September 2, 1889) was an American author, editor, and bibliographer.
Biography
Samuel Austin Allibone was born in 1816 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was a descendant of French Huguenots and Quakers. He received a private education in Philadelphia. For many years, he attempted to establish himself as a merchant, but his efforts met with little success. He eventually abandoned business to pursue his passion for books, developing an extensive knowledge of English literature through wide reading and bibliographical research.
His most significant work is A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. Allibone registered his copyright for the work in 1854. As it happened, George William Childs of the publishing firm Childs & Peterson maintained offices at 602 Arch Street in Philadelphia, In 1855, Childs printed a specimen of Allibone’s book for reviewers. This preview presented entries only for the first three letters.
Not until 1858 did Childs & Peterson register its successor copyright and publish the first volume of Allibone’s Critical Dictionary, containing entries from A through J. In 1861 he re-established himself as a publisher under his own name, Facilitated by Childs's friendship with both Allibone and Lippincott, the copyright in the Critical Dictionary passed to Joshua B. Lippincott in 1870.
In quick succession the whole of Allibone’s Critical Dictionary then appeared: volume 1 in 1870, expanded to encompass A through L;
which, according to McConnell, included generous support for Allibone in his labors.
The first volume of Lippincott’s edition retained Allibone’s dedication to George William Childs, but substituted “The Original Publisher of this Volume” for “The Publisher of this Work”. of bias against Catholic writers, especially in relation to literature about Mary, Queen of Scots.
A two-volume supplement was prepared by John Foster Kirk for J. B. Lippincott. The first volume, A through G, appeared in 1891 and for Washington Irving's Life and Letters (1861–1864).
Samuel Allibone's brother was Thomas Allibone (1809–1876), senior member of the family's shipping concern, Thomas Allibone & Co. Thomas Allibone was president of the large Bank of Pennsylvania at the time of its collapse in September 1857.
Works
thumbnail|right|Frontispiece from the 1876 illustrated edition of Poetical Quotations.
- Although widely attributed to Allibone, no trace of this tract is now evident. It was probably published by the American Sunday-School Union.
- Evidences of the Divine Origin of the Holy Scriptures. Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union. 1871.
- The title page brags: "With copious indexes: authors, 550; subjects, 435; quotations, 13,600." Lippincott also issued Poetical Quotations in a fancy edition with a frontis piece and a different title page, which advertised that the book is "illustrated with twenty steel engravings."
- The title page brags: "With indexes: authors, 544; subjects, 571; quotations, 8810."