William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) is a classic author whose works are in the public domain.
![Slang and its analogues past and present, volume 2 [of 7] : $b A dictionary, historical and comparative of the heterodox speech of all classes of society for more than three hundred years. With synonyms in English, French, German, Italian, etc.](https://bigbookhub.com/api/covers/gutenberg-77292.jpg)
Henley's monumental dictionary preserves the language of the streets, taverns, and margins, documenting how ordinary people have spoken truth to power for three centuries through words society tried to forget.

Henley's monumental dictionary catalogs three centuries of underworld speech, slang, and cant—the language of people history ignores, proving that how the powerless spoke mattered as much as how rulers wrote.