Edward William Lane travelled to Egypt in 1842 for initiating the Arabic English Lexicon and spent rest of his life until his death in 1876 on creating this marvelous scholarly work. He could complete this Lexicon only to the letter QAF and rest of the work was completed by his great-nephew Stanley Lane-Poole.

If you would like to know about Lane and Lexicon then read the Preface included in the test file available for download and if you like to know more then read:
Edward William Lane: The Life of the Pioneering Egyptologist and Orientalist, 1801-1876 by Jason Thompson.
This book is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Edward-William-Lane-Egyptologist-Orientalist/dp/9774162870

The file available on this site is a complete and fully searchable version of the legendary Lexicon authored by Edward William Lane and Stanley Lane-Poole. The tremendous effort put forth by him can be realized from the following excerpt from the Preface to the Lexicon:

“Nearly twenty years have now elapsed since I commenced this work. Had I foreseen that the whole labour of the composition must fall upon me or the project be abandoned, and had I also foreseen the length of time that it would require of me, unaided, I should certainly not have had the courage to undertake it, I had hoped that I should have at least one coadjutor: and I continued to hope for some years that such might be the case; but by no one have I been aided in the least degree, except, occasionally, in discussions of difficult points, by the sheykh Ibraheem Ed-Dasookee; who has written the results of some of these discussions on the margins of pages of my copy of the Taj el-‘Aroos, generally in his own words, but often in words dictated by me. For seven years, in Cairo, I prosecuted my task on each of the work-days of the week, after an early breakfast, until within an hour of midnight, with few and short intervals of rest, (often with no interruption but that of a few minutes at a time for a meal, and half an hour for exercise,) except on rare occasions when I was stopped by illness, and once when I devoted three days to a last visit to the Pyramids : I seldom allowed myself to receive a visiter except on Friday, the Sabbath and leisure-day of the Muslims : and more than once I passed a quarter of a year without going out of my house.”