John Stephen Farmer

John Stephen Farmer (1854–1916) was an English lexicographer and editor. After early books on spiritualism, he turned to the history of the English language. With the poet W. E. Henley he compiled Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present, published for subscribers in seven volumes between 1890 and 1904, a pioneering historical dictionary of English slang. He also produced Americanisms Old and New, an anthology of verse in thieves' cant called Musa Pedestris, and a long series of facsimiles and modernized editions of Tudor plays. Little is known about his private life.