John Richardson (orientalist)

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John Richardson (1740/41–1795) was a scholar at Wadham College, Oxford. He edited the first Persian-Arabic-English dictionary (1778–1780). He also co-wrote an important Persian grammar with Sir William Jones, an early work that formed the basis for later studies in Persian grammar. His dictionary was organized in two volumes, sold separately, following a layout similar to Mesgnien-Meninski's Thesaurus. More copies of the Persian-Arabic-English portion were sold than the English-Persian-Arabic portion; when overstock existed, printers produced more copies of the first book of the second edition. Richardson's work reached a wider audience through Charles Wilkins' revised dictionaries. In the 19th century, philologists like Francis Johnson and Francis Joseph Steingass kept his name known, and later lexicographers continued to revise and extend his work.