Sweet neglected his formal academic coursework, concentrating instead on pursuing excellence in his private studies. Early recognition came in his first year at Oxford, when the prestigious Philological Society (whose President he was destined to become later on) published a paper of his on Old English. In 1871, still an undergraduate, he edited King Alfred's translation of the "Cura Pastoralis" for the Early English Text Society ("King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care: With an English Translation, the Latin Text, Notes, and an Introduction"), his commentary establishing the foundation for Old English dialectology. He graduated, nearly thirty years old, with a fourth-class degree in "literae humaniores". Subsequent works on Old English included "An Anglo-Saxon Reader" (1876), "The Oldest English Texts" (1885) and "A Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon" (1896).