The New International Encyclopædia/Wheeler, William Adolphus

WHEELER, William Adolphus (1833-74). An American lexicographer, born at Lester, Mass. A graduate of Bowdoin (1853), Wheeler, after teaching for several years, assisted Joseph E. Worcester in preparing his Dictionary, and contributed to the revision of Noah Webster's Dictionary (1864), for which he prepared an “Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted Fictitious Persons and Places, including Familiar Pseudonyms, Surnames, etc.” This was published separately in 1865. Wheeler then joined the staff of the Boston Public Library, became superintendent of the catalogue department, and made collections for a Shakespearean cyclopædia. He revised the abridgment of Webster's Dictionary and Hole's Brief Biographical Dictionary (1866), and edited Mother Goose Melodies (with antiquarian and philological notes, 1869) and a Dickens Dictionary (1873).