Editing Table Alphabeticall (section)

==Details==
The full title of ''A Table Alphabeticall'' is ''"A Table Alphabeticall, containing and teaching the true writing, and vnderſtanding of hard uſuall Engliſh words, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French, &c. With the interpretation thereof by plain writing acts and Engliſh words, gathered for the benefit and help of ladies, gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons. Whereby that they may speak more eaſily easily and fluently, have a better vnderſtand many hard Engliſh words, vvhich they ſhall hear or read in Scripture, Sermons, or elſe vvhere, and alſo be made able to vſe at the same aptitude  themſelues."''

Transliterated into modern English, the title becomes ''"A table [in] alphabetical [order], containing and teaching the true writing, and understanding of hard usual English words, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or French, etc [languages]. With the interpretation thereof by plain English words, gathered for the benefit and help of ladies, gentlewomen, or any other unskillful persons. Whereby they may the more easily and better understand many hard English words, which they shall hear or read in scriptures, sermons, or elsewhere, and also be made able to use the same aptly themselves."''

''A Table Alphabeticall'' was published in [[London]]. The 1604 edition was printed by "I. R." (I. Roberts) for [[Edmund Weaver (publisher)|Edmund Weaver]] (listed as "Edmund Weauer"). The books are marked with a note that they "are to be sold at his shop at the great North dore of [[Old St Paul's Cathedral|Paules Church]], 1604".

''A Table Alphabeticall'' proved fairly popular. There was a second edition in 1609, a third edition in 1613, and a fourth edition in 1617. The second and third editions were printed by "T. S." in London for Edmund Weaver. The third edition was "Set forth by R.C. and newly corrected, and much inlarged with many words now in use" and includes the inscription "''Legere, et non intelligere, neglegere est''" ("To read, and to not understand, is to neglect").

As before, these newer editions were "to be sold at his shop at the great North doore of Paules Church."

The first edition listed 2,543 headwords. The dictionary increased in size with every succeeding edition, until the fourth edition in 1617 defined 3,264 words. The only surviving copy is found at the [[Bodleian Library]] in [[Oxford]].

The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) reference Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, but not by name, in the first paragraph of the Historical Introduction. "To set Cawdrey's slim small volume of 1604 beside the completed Oxford Dictionary of 1933 is like placing the original acorn beside the oak that has grown out of it."<ref>The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.</ref>