On This Day – 1st February

Did you know that on this day in 1884, the very first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was first published? Remarkably, this first edition of a future series of the dictionaries, was a project that began in the late 1850s. Today, dictionaries and thesaurus are among the writer’s greatest tools, not only identifying new words and clarifying their meanings but also adding to a writer’s toolkit of pithy descriptive prowess!

Also on this day, in 1814, Lord Byron published arguably one of his most famous poems ‘The Corsair’ – for such a young poet, Byron had already established himself as one of the country’s literary greats and would later be immortalised as a master of his trade. Certainly his greatness was widely recognised in his day and on an early winter day on the 1st of February 1814, The Corsair was released to great acclaim, selling thousands of copies on that first day of publication.

A friend of Lord Byrong, did you know that the 1st of February also marked the day that Mary Shelley died in 1851? Best known for her Frankenstein novel which is often considered to be one of the founding novels of the very early science fiction genre, Shelley is hailed today as a classic author who spearheaded a new avenue of storytelling.