Partridge published seven editions of his "hugely influential"
slang dictionary before his death in 1979. The dictionary was "regarded as filling a lexicographical gap" For the two editions published before the Second World War,
obscenity laws prohibited full printing of vulgar words; Partridge therefore substituted
asterisks for the
vowels of words considered obscene. of the 1937 first edition.
Literary critic Edmund Wilson praised the dictionary, stating that the work "ought to be acquired by every reader who wants his library to have a sound lexicographical foundation". In 1985, John Gross of
The New York Times called
A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English "the nearest thing to a standard work in its field". In a 2002 review of the eighth edition,
University College London Professor of English
John Mullan argued that the "strength and weakness" of the dictionary was Partridge's "willingness to include his opinions [on word
etymology] in what presented itself as a work of reference". However, Mullan also argued that by 2002 the dictionary entries were growing continually further out of date and out of touch with modern slang usages. In 1972, an abridgement (by
Jacqueline Simpson) of the 1961 edition was published by Penguin Reference Books as
A Dictionary of Historical Slang. ==Update following Partridge's death==