Samuel Ayscough Publishes the First Concordance to Shakespeare's Plays

In 1790 the Rev. Samuel Ayscough, Assistant Librarian of the British Museum, known as the "Prince of Index Makers" for the many indices that he compiled, published An Index to the Remarkable Pssages and Words Made Use of by Shakespeare; Calculated to Point Out the Different Meanings to Which the Words are Applied. This work, extending to 672 pages set in small type, was the first concordance to Shakespeare's plays.

"Until Ayscough brought out his Index in 1790 there had been no concordance to Shakespeare. This was a speculation on the part of the publisher, John Stockdale, who paid 200 guineas for the index, which was designed to accompany his two-volume edition of the Dramatic Works. Here the words are arranged alphabetically with the lines in which they occur, then the name of the play, and in five separate columns the act, scene, page, column and line. The last three particulars refer only to the edition of 1790, but the index may be made to serve any other text. Francis Twiss compiled his Verbal Index in 1805; both were superseded by Mrs Cowden Clarke's Concordance of 1845. All three are devoted to the plays alone and are supplemented by Mrs Furness's Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems (1874). There was still no complete concordance to the entire works in the late 19th century.^[1]