The most famous of all American dictionary makers, Noah Webster was as influential in the history of American English as George Washington in the American revolution. From the Dissertation on the English Language in 1789 to his great monuments of 1828, an American Dictionary of the English Language (referred to simply as Webster's), his work is reak landmark in American history. He was born in Hartford, and, like many of the American revolutionaries, turned from law to reaching as a means of making his living. That was of those career changes that transform man's life. Britain was at war with the colonies and schoolbooks, traditionally imported from London, were in short supply. So, very much in the spirit of a new world, he
set about filling that gap. Between 1783 and 1785 while still in his twenties Webster published three elementary books in English: a speller, a grammar and a reader. The American Speller turned out to be a runaway bestseller, selling over 80 million copies in Webster's lifetime (second to the Bible). The success of the American Speller gave Webster more than enough to live on, and he devoted the rest of his life to the championing of the cause of the American language, its spelling, its grammar and its pronunciation. He wrote: "Our honour requires us to have a system of our own, in language
as well as in government".