Working at Oxford University Press, Speake helped OED editor John Simpson bring out a second edition of his Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, and a third edition in 1998. She became sole editor for the fourth (2003) and subsequent editions.[2] Speake's other work included a biography of Thomas Vaughan, a philosopher from Wales.[3]
Speake's three-volume 2003 encyclopedia of travel literature received a 2004 Reference and User Services Association award.[4] One reviewer called it "an amazing collection of those people, famous, not-so-famous, and infamous alike, who have traveled the world over, with long lists of additional books for the travel narrative lover".[5] Another reviewer, while noting inconsistency in its coverage, praised it as providing "an unusually rich entrée into an immense field that crosses cultural, historical and discipinary boundaries."[6]
^Committee, Rusa Codes Reference Sources (Spring 2004). "Outstanding Reference Sources: The 2004 Selection on Recent Titles". Reference & User Services Quarterly. 43 (3): 215–216. JSTOR20864201.
^Ellsworth Ross, Abigail F. (Spring 2004). "Review: Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia by Jennifer Speake". Reference & User Services Quarterly. 43 (3): 267–268. JSTOR20864220.
^Burton, Stacy (Summer 2004). "Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia by Jennifer Speake". Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. 11 (2): 279–280. doi:10.1093/isle/11.2.279. JSTOR44086328.
^Woolf, D. R. (Winter 1988). "Review: The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, by Thomas G. Bergin and Jennifer Speake". The Sixteenth Century Journal. 19 (4): 702–703. doi:10.2307/2541028. JSTOR2541028.