The Biographical Dictionary of America/Allibone, Samuel Austin

ALLIBONE, Samuel Austin, author, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., April 17, 1816. He received a liberal education, and was a man of literary taste, but at first did not confine his attention to literature, being in business in his native city. Gradually his leisure hours were spent in literary labor, and, as an amateur, he began the great work with which his name is so widely associated and to which he devoted many years of his life. His home was a fine old colonial mansion, situated on Arch street above Ninth, in Philadelphia, and here he had collected a very large library. He was a devout member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and an earnest Sunday school worker. He published some contributions relating to theological controversy, but eventually concentrated his attention on the "Critical Dictionary of English Literature, and British and American Authors," which, a vast undertaking, gave him little time for other employments. In 1854 the first volume was published and its author became an acknowledged authority on the subjects of which it treated. It was seventeen years before the second and third volumes appeared. His dictionary contains critical and biographical notices of 46,000 British and American authors. In connection with it he compiled several books of prose and practical quotations and valuable indices to publications of importance. His religious tracts and handbook are also well known. In 1867 he was made book editor and corresponding secretary of the American Sunday school union, retaining the office for six years, and holding it again from 1877 to 1879. His publications, additional to those previously mentioned, are: "A Review by a Layman of a work, entitled, New Themes for the Protestant Clergy" (1852); "New Themes Condemned" (1853); "An Alphabetical Index to the New Testament" (1868); "Explanatory Questions on the Gospels and the Acts" (1869); "Union Bible Companion" (1871); "Poetical Quotations, from Chaucer to Tennyson" (1873); "Prose Quotations, from Socrates to Macaulay" (1876); and "Great Authors of All Ages, being selections from the prose works of eminent writers from the time of Pericles to the present day" (1880). In 1879, when the Lenox library was newly endowed he was invited to become the Librarian. He accepted and removed to New York city, but failing health compelled him to resign his position in 1888, and he died Sept. 2, 1889.