Antoni Maria Alcover i Sureda (Manacor, Mallorca 1862 – Palma 1932), linguist, folklorist and publicist, was born into a Carlist family and was ordained a priest in 1886; in 1888 he became a professor at the Palma seminary, where he taught, among other subjects, language, literature and the history of Mallorca. Eventually he was appointed vicar general (1898) and canon of the See of Mallorca (1905). Interested from an early age in popular literature, in 1885 he published a collection of dialect narratives, Contarelles (2nd extended ed. 1915), under the pseudonym “Jordi des Racó”; numerous volumes of the Aplec de rondaies mallorquines followed from 1896 onwards, which became immensely popular in Mallorca. In 1900, he started to work on the ambitious Obra del diccionari, with progress reports in the Bolletí del diccionari de la llengua catalana (1901-26). This lexicographical project involved a wide network of collaborators throughout the Catalan-speaking territories, and numerous travels which spread Alcover’s popularity. He was a member of the jury of the 1905 Floral Games and the driving force behind the 1st International Congress of the Catalan Language (1906); and in 1911, when the Philological Section of the Institute of Catalan Studies was created, he was appointed president. Later, however, his strong personality brought him into conflict with other members of the Philological Section, particularly with Pompeu Fabra, which distanced him from political Catalan nationalism.

His lexicographical project was subsidized by the Madrid government and continued even when this subsidy was withdrawn in 1926 by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Francesc de Borja Moll, who had joined the project as an editorial secretary in 1921, became a close collaborator, continuing the Diccionari català-valencià-balear after the publication of its first volume in 1926 and Alcover’s death in 1932.

Alcover published widely on a variety of topics. Of particular note are Estudios sobre la historia de Mallorca antes del siglo XIII (1898) and a biography of the early 19th-century Mallorcan historian José Maria Quadrado (1919). Language-related articles published in various journals were given a collected edition in 1983 (Per la llengua, ed. J. Massot i Muntaner, new ed. 2001). In 1996, work began on publishing the critical edition of the Aplec de rondaies mallorquines. His Epistolari familiar appeared between 1989 and 1999, and some of his most fundamental and apologetic texts were collected in Materials biogràfics i ideològics (2004). Other works that have been published are Viatge a Alemanya i altres nacions (1996), Dietaris de les eixides (1900-02, 2001-02) and Dietari de l’excursió filològica (1906, 2006).