Life and works of Hungarian writers (Szinnyei)

Szinnyei was a significant bibliographer and librarian of the second half of the 19th century, who, from a young age of 1860, collected the data for the design of a hopeful great Hungarian literary lexicon.

By 1877, such a large amount of material had been collected that Szinnyei submitted his application to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in connection with his work.

The author finally signed a contract with the academic bookstore of Viktor Hornyánszky, and the first booklets of the first volume may have been published as early as 1890.

He spoke more about the more famous writers, narrowing down the biographical data of those classified as less significant, but paying close attention to the completeness of the titles of their independently published works.

He used the material of the previous bibliographers carefully, and for the newer literature he adapted to the data of museum books, newspapers, magazines, obituaries, and CVs.