William Adolphus Wheeler

Wheeler grew up in Topsham, Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College (A.B. 1853; A.M. 1856).[1] He taught school a few years, and became Joseph Emerson Worcester's assistant in compiling his quarto dictionary,[2] published in 1860.[1] To the appendix of this work he contributed a table entitled “Pronunciation of the Names of Distinguished Men of Modern Times.” Subsequently, with Richard Soule, he prepared the book known as Worcester's Spelling Book.[2] He was employed as general reviser of the edition of Noah Webster's dictionary published in 1864, and contributed to it an “Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted Fictitious Persons and Places,” which was enlarged and published separately (Boston and London, 1865).[1][2] He had been from 1868 assistant superintendent of the Boston Public Library,[2] where he superintended the catalogue department.[3]

Besides the publications cited above, he revised and edited Charles Hole's Brief Biographical Dictionary (1866), and the Dickens Dictionary (1873),[4] and began a Cyclopædia of Shakespearian Literature.[2] He edited Mother Goose Melodies (with antiquarian and philological notes, 1869).[3] He left unfinished an index to the principal works of ancient and modern literature, to be entitled Who Wrote It?[2] This was completed by C. G. Wheeler, and published in 1881.[4] He edited Familiar Allusions (1882).[4]