Antoni Paryski’s Wielki ilustrowany angielskopolski i polsko-angielski słownik… (1899): Facts and myths

Antoni Paryski, one of the most successful Polish publishers in the United States, was also a bilingual lexicographer. Among other things, he undertook the compilation of Wielki ilustrowany angielsko-polski i polsko-angielski słownik… [The great illustrated English-Polish and Polish-English dictionary…], asserting that it would cover as many as 250,000 headwords. The dictionary appeared in fascicles from May 1899 but was discontinued soon thereafter. Albeit none of the few fascicles published is available today, one page of the first fascicle was reprinted in Paryski’s weekly Ameryka, thus allowing for a preliminary assessment of the quality of the endeavour. Drawing on data culled from issues of Ameryka (1898−1899), this paper also aims at reconstructing the story of the dictionary.