The alphabet as a device offers compilers and users of encyclopaedias and dictionaries an invaluable practical advantage in the efficient arrangement of large quantities of information. There are also texts in which authors make use of an alphabetical form because they are interested in it for its own sake and that of its implications: "literary" dictionaries and vocabulary lists, lexicon novels, encyclopaedic presentations of things which are primarily written about in order to include them in an alphabetically organised text, or which are even invented specifically to be presented in this way. This volume brings together the papers from a conference at the Ruhr University in Bochum on the theme of 'Lexicography as a cultural and literary form', which examine from various perspectives the relationships between the alphabet, concepts of the encyclopaedia, lexicographical processes and dictionary production, and the significance of all these for literature and art.--Supplied by publisher.