CASTELL, EDMUND (1606-1685), English orientalist, born at Tadlow, Cambridgeshire, entered Emmanuel college, Cam bridge, but removed to St. John's, where he compiled his Lexicon Heptaglotton Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Samaritanum, Aethiopicum, Arabicum, et Persicum (1669), on which he spent 18 years, working (if we may accept his own statement) from 16 to 18 hours a day, and employing 14 assistants. He was in prison in 1667 because he was unable to discharge his brother's debts, for which he had made himself liable. His own fortune had been spent on the Lexicon. A volume of poems dedicated to the king brought him preferment. He was made prebendary of Canterbury and professor of Arabic at Cambridge. His mss. he bequeathed to the University of Cambridge. He died in 1685 at Higham Gobion, Bedfordshire, where he was rector.
The Syriac section of the Lexicon was issued separately at Got tingen in 1788 by J. D. Michaelis. Trier published the Hebrew section in 1790-92.