Author's working copy for the third edition. A rare working copy for the enlarged third edition of Eric Partridge's A Dictionary of the Underworld, with the author's ownership inscription and his manuscript annotations and corrections in pen.

Signed 'Eric Partridge, 15 The Woodlands, Southgate, London, N14, working copy' to the front free endpaper. The annotations begin on the front flap with the substitution of 'Second Impression' for 'Third Edition', and continue on the verso of the front free endpaper, noting 'Corrections and Additions for the 3rd edition:- front inside flap of jacket / page facing the title / 'biblio' / dedication / contents / acknowledgement / foreword / abbreviations p.xiii / new matter: pp818ff (preface & glossary) / back of jacket'. With further extensive annotations to the preliminary materials.

The dictionary was first published in 1949 following the success of Partridge's companion work A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, which appeared in 1937. It deals with the 'language of the criminal and near-criminal world... arranged on historical lines and includes the underworld language of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa as well as of Britain and America' (front flap).

Highlights include: 'pincher... One who, in changing money or, less usually in making purchases, habitually (as a livelihood) "rings the changes"' (p.514), 'nosh... to steal selectively' (p.806), and the origins of the expression 'double cross' in horse-racing when 'a jockey that has undertaken to lose, at some time in the race (and for the rest of the race), decides to try to win it' (p.200)

Second impression; 4to (25.5 x 19.5 cm); author's working copy with his manuscript corrections; ownership inscription in pen to front free endpaper recto, manuscript annotations in pen; publisher's blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, typograph red dustjacket, price-clipped, crudely repaired with brown parcel tape to verso, edges frayed with loss; xv, [1], 817, [1]pp.