Julie Coleman is Reader in English at the University of Leicester and founder of the International Society for Historical Lexicography and Lexicology. Her research interests lie in the history of the English language, particularly the history of the lexis. She is the author of A Thesaurus of Love, Sex, and Marriage (Rodopi 1999). The first two volumes of her history of cant and slang dictionaries, on the periods 1567-1784 and 1785-1858, were published by OUP in 2004. A third volume is being published in 2008 and a fourth volume, taking the history to 1984, is in preparation. She is the joint editor with Anne McDermott of Historical Lexicography and Lexicology: Papers from the first ICHLL, which is to be published by Niemeyer in Tübingen.