Beginning shortly before he became a barrister, and continuing until shortly before his death, Hall wrote seven books alongside several shorter works. The first two,
A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary and
Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg: A Translation into Modern English Prose, quickly became authoritative works that went through four editions each. Hall's third book, a translation of Swedish essays on
Beowulf by
Knut Stjerna, was similarly influential. Hall's later works were Christian-themed, including two published by the
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Hall's dictionary of
Old English, subtitled
For the Use of Students, quickly became a widely used work upon its publication in 1894. The work, issued four years before the final volume of
An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary by
Joseph Bosworth and
Thomas Northcote Toller, filled the need of a complete Old English dictionary. "At last", wrote
The Guardian, "we have a complete Anglo-Saxon dictionary, complete from A to the very end of the alphabet." Two years later, the publication of
Henry Sweet's ''A Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon
provided a second modern compact dictionary. After Bosworth–Toller was completed in 1898, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary
continued to serve prominently as an introductory, if smaller, resource; Hall, Bosworth–Toller, and Sweet were all eventually superseded by The Dictionary of Old English'', issued by the University of Toronto starting in 1986. The first edition of the dictionary attempted to ease access by ordering entries by the words as they were actually spelt in common editions of Old English texts, and critics noted that this introduced its own share of confusion. Hall eliminated this approach in a 1916 second edition, acknowledging that this "was admittedly an unscientific [approach], and opened the door to a good many errors and inconsistencies". Thenceforth he adopted the conventional method of using "normalised" entry words. Hall also began indicating words found only in poetical texts, providing the source of words recorded only once, and adding cross-references to corresponding entries in the
Oxford English Dictionary, then underway. The edition was "markedly superior to the first edition" according to a reviewer for
Modern Philology, and according to
Frederick Klaeber, its "outward make-up is almost an ideal one". In
Journal of Education, a reviewer termed it "the most modern treatment of the most ancient usage of our language". A third and significantly expanded edition of the dictionary followed in 1931; according to
Francis Peabody Magoun, it was "to all intents and purposes [a] completely new edition", and "a notable monument to the memory of its author", who died the year of publication. A fourth edition—a reprinting with a supplement by the philologist
Herbert Dean Meritt—came in 1960. This was reprinted by the
University of Toronto Press starting in 1984, and is still in print as of 2024.
Beowulf , showing lines 1138–1158 In 1901, after publication of the first edition of his dictionary, Hall published a literal
translation of Beowulf. It was the tenth English translation of the work and became "the standard trot to
Beowulf. It was largely praised at its outset, including by
The Manchester Guardian for containing a "decidedly better" translation than any in current use, and by
Chauncey Brewster Tinker for providing "a useful compendium of
Beowulf material", although
The Athenæum wrote that in striving to be too literal, it did not "go very far towards supplying the desideratum" of an "adequate prose version" of the poem. The first edition was followed by a corrected second in 1911. Such revision was "welcome", wrote the English philologist
Allen Mawer, "for it is probably the best working translation that we have".
The Athenæum, for its part, wrote that the work was "unaltered in general character", but "with considerable improvements". Posthumous third and fourth editions were edited by
Charles Leslie Wrenn and published in 1940 and 1950, respectively. These contained an essay by
J. R. R. Tolkien, "Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of 'Beowulf, which was later restyled "
On Translating Beowulf for the compilation
The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays. Hall's translation—known simply as "Clark Hall"—was "still the '
crib of choice' in Oxford in the 1960s", according to
Marijane Osborn, an Old English scholar and
Beowulf translator who compiled a list of more than 300 translations and adaptations of the poem. A 2011 survey of
Beowulf translations termed it "one of the most enduringly popular of all translations of the poem". In 1910 Hall published a note on lines 1142–1145 of the poem in
Modern Language Notes, and two years later, he translated various papers by Stjerna into the work
Essays on Questions Connected with the Old English Poem of Beowulf. "It is the great value of these essays", wrote Hall, "that in them Stjerna has collected all the material bearing on the poem of
Beowulf which archæological research has yielded in the three Scandinavian countries up to the present time." Previously written in Swedish and published in a medley of obscure journals and
Festschrifts before Stjerna's early death, Hall's translation gave them much a much broader audience—which English museum curator
E. Thurlow Leeds called "a great service"—and added what Klaeber termed "the function of a conscientious and skilful editor besides". Although the chief reader would be "the Old English student",
The Observer wrote, "the helmets and swords in
Beowulf and the funeral obsequies of
Beowulf and of
Scyld... should serve to send many readers to the poem which has been translated by Dr. Clark Hall in an excellent prose version". Hall followed up his literal
Beowulf translation with a
metrical translation in 1914. Writing for
The Modern Language Review, professor of English and fellow
Beowulf translator
W. G. Sedgefield suggested that by "attempting to make a metrical version of the
Beowulf in modern English, Dr Clark Hall has undertaken one of the most difficult tasks possible for a translator, and we intend no reflection on his ability and scholarship when we say that in our opinion he has not succeeded". Noting the difficulties of
translating the poem and what he termed "arbitrar[y]" choices by Hall, Sedgefield concluded that "Dr Hall would have done well not to try to improve on his excellent prose version of the poem." The metrical translation did not see a second edition, although it was republished in 2014.
Christianity Hall's obituary termed him a "protestant reformer", and several of his writings touched on the subject of Christianity. In 1919 and 1923, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge published two of his works. The former,
Herbert Tingle, and Especially His Boyhood, served as a memoir to Hall's lifelong friend, who had died the year before, and included an introduction by
Bishop of Oxford Hubert Burge, The book was also marketed as a "book for educationists"; described how Tingle had only one year of formal schooling but devised methods of
educating himself with self-made toys and games. In the journal
School, a reviewer wrote that "Herbert Tingle apparently had never heard of
Froebel or
Montessori... yet his available knowledge made him a delightful companion his friend writes, and his independence of education so called would delight the soul of
Henry Adams. Let all educators read this piece of Herbert Tingle's life and ponder on the essentials to be taught the young!" Writing for
Journal of Education, another reviewer added that while Tingle seemed to be of no special account, and while "for the life of me I do not quite see why I read it, [but] we are glad there were two boys like Tingle and Hall and that after one of them passed on at the age of sixty-five the other has taken time to write about their boyhood days and ways." Later works were more overtly Christian. Hall's 1923 pamphlet by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
Birth-Control and Self-Control, criticised the ethics of birth control. Five years later Hall published a book titled
Is Our Christianity a Failure? The Contemporary Review called it an "earnest, fair-minded book, written with judicial weight of mind", while
The Spectator termed it a "layman's attempt to express and defend his religion". == Works ==