Robert Nares was Chaplain to the Duke of York, and later took became Assistant Librarian in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (later rising to the position of Keeper). This glossary of words, phrases, sayings and customs of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, first published in 1822, was his best known work; this later edition was edited by the Shakespearean scholar James Orchard Halliwell and Thomas Wright, antiquary and co-founder of the British Archaeological Association, and the Shakespeare Society.