This chapter introduces the reader to the volume and outlines the book’s structure: first, an overview of essential issues pertaining to dictionary style and content; secondly, a fresh narrative of the development of English dictionaries throughout the centuries right up to current-day applications of technology, corpus linguistics, natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence; and thirdly, essays on the regional and global nature of English lexicography and its power to help standardise varieties of English and to define nations seeking independence from the British Empire.