Martin’s account of the dictionary feuds of the 19th century is as lively and entertaining as the battle itself. In one corner was Noah Webster; in the other, Joseph Emerson Worcester. Both seasoned lexicographers, they realized that Americans were coining new words, using old ones in new ways and preserving usages the British had dropped. Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary, even updated, wouldn’t do. America needed its own dictionary. But who would write it?

The battle was drawn in 1828 and lasted for decades, as a succession of dictionaries by Webster and Worcester fought it out in the marketplace. Everyone took sides: journalists, politicians, literary lions, even universities (Yale for Webster, Harvard for Worcester). The contest effectively ended in 1864, when George and Charles Merriam triumphantly published a “Webster’s” celebrated by all. Worcester died the following year, and his dictionaries faded away. So Noah Webster won, right? Wrong.

Martin, whose books include biographies of Johnson and James Boswell, portrays Webster as a crank and an embarrassingly flawed lexicographer. Worcester, on the other hand, was a solid, meticulous scholar familiar with the latest advances in etymology and philology. His reputation grew as Webster’s waned. After Webster died in 1843, the shrewd Merriams kept the brand alive only by “taking Webster out of Webster.” Over the next two decades, they essentially Worcesterized the dictionary that bore Webster’s name. In the end, neither had the last word.

358 pp. Princeton University. $29.95.