English isone of the most complicated languages to learn, and its constantly evolving vocabulary certainly doesn t help matters. For centuries, men and women have striven to chronicle and categorize the expressions of the English language, and Samuel Johnson is usually thought to be their original predecessor. But that lineage is wrong: Robert Cawdrey published his Table Alphabeticall in 1604, 149 years before Johnson s tome, and it is now republished here for the first time in over 350 years.

This edition, prepared from the sole surviving copy of the first printing,...