William Perry: A Late Modern ‘Ulysses’

The aim of this chapter is to look at the concept of intellectual Ulyssism from the perspective of one single author, i.e. the prolific Scottich writer/lexicographer William Perry. Due to lack of scholarly attention, Perry could be defined as one of the "forgotten phoneticians" (Abercrombie 1948) of the Late Modern period. Despite his initial influence and contribution to the creation of a 'standard' English accent in Britain, and later editorial success and influence in the United States, together with Thomas Sheridan and other later 18th-century orthoepists, his name and works were surpassed by John Walker's Critical Dictionary first published in 1791.