Describes the life and times of the man made famous for writing the first dictionary of the English language.

An upper-middle-grade biography on Noah Webster, a controversial political activist, the primary shaper of the American language, and author of the famous dictionary that bears his name. Illustrated with archival images.

Peter Martin recounts the patriotic fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive national dictionary that would rival Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language. But what began as a cultural war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among lexicographers, authors, scholars, and publishers, all vying for dictionary supremacy and shattering forever the dream of a unified American language.