What is Lane's supplement?

[Abu Muqatil]

Some of the entries in Lane's lexicon are missing and instead one is told to refer to the 'supplement'. What is this, as I cannot find anything like it?

[Shajaa3ah]

Edward William Lane died before he was able to finish writing his Lexicon; he had worked on it for over thirty years and wanted his nephew Stanley Lane Poole to complete it after he died, and the nephew's work is what is contained in the supplement.

Edward Lane completely finished up to and including the letter faa', so the supplement only contains roots beginning with qaaf onwards. There are many entries from qaaf to yaa' that were completed by Edward Lane and these are the ones he thought would most be wanted, as he took his work to the printers when he had only finished little over half of it.

The supplement completed by his nephew is in no way of the same calibre as his own work, the entries are often very brief and miss out forms and derivatives of the roots. Edward Lane originally wanted to add a separate section on rare words and explanations, and while his nephew tried to do this also, he admitted that it was not up to standard. It appears he didn't bother putting too much effort into it because by this time Dozy had published his Supplement aux dictionnaires arabes (which also happens to be known as the 'Supplement') which covered that material.

If you are referring to the two-volume publication, the supplement can be found at the end of the second volume. If you are referring to the eight-volume publication, then it is either found at the end of the last volume or published as a separate tome. If you are referring to the CD version, there is a little white link at the bottom of the page that says 'See Supplementary Material' (or words to that effect).