Susan Rennie

Susan Rennie is a lexicographer and author. A former Senior Editor with Scottish Language Dictionaries, she edited and managed the online Dictionary of the Scots Language at the University of Dundee in 2001-4. Her books include The Oxford English Thesaurus for Schools, and several Scots-language books for children, including the award-winning Animal ABC: A Scots Alphabet.

Shortlisted for Saltire Society Research Book Award 2012

"Beautifully presented OUP, it is a joy both to behold and to hold - and will be held in esteem by who care for the welfare of our Scottish language." - David W. Purdie, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society

"This excellent study of a work of monumental scope and importance, and of the admirable man who produced it, combines meticulous research with lucid expression and a highly readable style. It will assuredly be welcomed by all readers with an interest in the Scots language, and in Scotland's intellectual history." - J. Derrick McClure, Scottish Studies Newsletter

"Rennie's book stands as an example of how scholarly biography - of both Jamieson and his Dictionary - should be composed, laying open the connections between the author and his work and his own time, our own times and them and the time which lies between." - Robert McColl Millar, Scottish Language no.30

"It is very difficult to find any fault with this book. It is erudite but also compelling and is beautifully edited...including a number of plates which help illuminate the texts." - Robert McColl Millar, Scottish Language no.30

"[This] book is a detailed work of research, but it is written in a fluent and lively style which makes it a pleasure to read." - Paul Henderson Scott, Scottish Review of Books

"Rennie offers a judicious sampling of Jamieson's definitions ... Though last published on paper in 1927, Jamieson's tangy Dictionary ascended into cyberspace in 2008. In Susan Rennie it has found its ideal chronicler. Engaged and engaging" - Robert Crawford, Times Literary Supplement

"Jamieson's Dictionary has found a worthy historian in the author of this excellent book ... it is the mature, learned, confident work of an established authority on her subject." - John Considine, Historiographia Linguistica

"Jamieson's Dictionary of Scots is a thoughtful and very carefully researched book that provides a sympathetic treatment of its eponymous hero and his lexicographical work. Until now, it was quite a challenge for anyone to find out much about this man without undertaking considerable research of their own. Rennie has done much here to rehabilitate his memory, and her monograph will be of special interest to students and scholars of Scots, the lexicography of Scots and English, and of Scottish literature. It is also a fascinating social history, and Rennie's account of the mundane trials Jamieson faced is a humbling reminder of the everyday obstacles he encountered during the production of his magnum opus." - Maggie Scott, International Journal of Lexicography

"engaging in style and illuminating in content, placing Jamieson and his Dictionary firmly where they deserve to be in the history of Scotland, of Scots, and of lexicography." - Margaret A. Mackay, Studies in Hogg and his World