WEBSTER NOAH A Grammatical Institute of the English Languag

Sale 2148 - Lot 361

Price Realized: $ 1,470

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000

SIC! UNRECORDED VARIANT STATE OF THE FIRST EDITION WEBSTER, NOAH. A Grammatical Institute of the English Languag . . . Part III, Containing the Necessary Rules of Reading and Speaking. 12mo, contemporary 1/4 calf-backed pastepaper boards, worn; lacking endpapers and leaf A5 (the last page of the preface and a blank verso), leaf A6 detached and worn, leaf Q1 nearly detached, foxing and several marginal tears throughout; signatures of early owners Mary Stebbens and Sally Field on verso of title page. Hartford: Barlow & Babcock, 1785

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Additional Details

first edition of Webster's popular reader, later issued as An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking and frequently reprinted. The title page has a rather embarrassing dropped letter, promising in its title to provide systematic instruction in the "English Languag". This important first edition is scarce enough in its corrected state, with only 8 copies listed in ESTC and no previous sale records found. The reader also includes the first partial appearance in print of two significant uncredited poems, Joel Barlow's "The Vision of Columbus" (94-101) and Timothy Dwight's "The Conquest of Canaan" (101-106)--BAL 859 and 5039. It also includes what appears to be the first American printing of Thomas Day's "Fragment of an Original Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes," a little-known piece of blistering abolitionist rhetoric which first appeared in London in 1784. Ellsworth and Skeel's Noah Webster 450, Evans 19364, Sabin 102357.