Tomlins, Thomas Edlyne, Sir, 1762-1841.

Tomlins's Law-Dictionary : (English Law, 1811)

Tomlins had published editions of Giles Jacob's dictionary in 1797, 1809, and 1810, including significant additions and corrections, so when he finally published his own dictionary in 1811, it closely resembled Jacob's. Tomlins saw the need for a new edition because he wanted to reference the vast numbers of "Statutes at Large, …ever increasing Series of Term Reports in the several Courts, as also Treatises on separate branches of the Law, Reports from both Houses of Parliament, and…many other authentic Resources" that had been published in a decade.

Unfortunately, this painstaking comprehensiveness made his two-volume dictionary appear inelegant and ungainly. Tomlins had included too much information for easy, quick reference. According to Marvin, the work was "prepared with skill and accuracy," but it seemed old-fashioned and clumsy almost as soon as it was published. Since more and more treatises were being published dealing with each separate branch of the law, there was "less need than formerly of extended disquisitions, such as are devoted to certain Titles in Mr. Tomlins' volumes" (Marvin, p. 693). It was a standard work for a few brief decades in the early nineteenth century, but was surpassed in England by the Law Lexicon of J. J. S. Wharton, first published in 1848, and in America by Bouvier's Law Dictionary.

John G. Marvin, Legal Bibliography, or a Thesaurus of American, English, Irish, and Scotch Law Books (Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson, 1847).

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