Samuel Lewis

Samuel Lewis ( – 28 February 1865) was a British editor and publisher of topographical dictionaries and maps of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The aim of the texts was to give in "a condensed form" a faithful and impartial description of each place. The firm of Samuel Lewis and Co. was based in London.

Life and career Lewis was born in 1782 or 1783 and was described as a "man of no education."

He operated as a publisher of topographical dictionaries in London under the style of "S. Lewis & Co." at the following successive locations: Aldersgate Street, Hatton Garden, and Finsbury Place South.

The work is in two large volumes with a folding map of Wales and separate county maps facing the entry for each individual county.

The 4th edition was transcribed and made available free-to-view online by the University of London.

A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland First published in 1837 in two volumes, with an accompanying atlas, it marked a new and higher standard in such accounts of Ireland, though it initially met with controversy from the Dublin Evening Mail. A second edition was published in 1840.

In the 1837 preface, the editor noted that:

The numerous county histories, and local descriptions of cities, towns, and districts of England and Wales, rendered the publication of their former works, in comparison with the present, an easy task. The extreme paucity of such works, in relation to Ireland, imposed the necessity of greater assiduity in the personal survey, and proportionately increased the expense.