A Dictionary of the English Language:
in which The Words are deduced from their Originals, and Illustrated in their Different Significations by Examples from the best Writers. To which are prefixed, A History of the Language, and An English Grammar.
London: by W. Strahan, for J. and P. Knapton; T. and T. Longman; C. Hitch and L. Hawes; A. Millar; and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755 Stock Code: 87924
First edition of this most famous of English dictionaries. This work has at various times been called "the most important British cultural monument of the eighteenth century" (Hitchings); "the only dictionary of the English language compiled by a writer of the first rank" (Robert Burchfield); "the most amazing, enduring and endearing one-man feat in the field of lexicography" (PMM); and the first genuinely descriptive dictionary in any language. "Johnson's writings had, in philology, the effect which Newton's discoveries had in mathematics" (Webster).
Description
2 volumes, folio (400 x 251 mm). Contemporary boards fully re-covered to style in sprinkled calf, spines with raised bands, gilt in compartments, red and green labels, board-edges with decorative roll in gilt.
Illustrations
Title pages in red and black. Bookplates of William J. Young, Professor of Music (fl. 1851).
Condition
Vol. I title a little short at head and with inkspot at foot, lower outer corner of following leaf torn away not affecting text, with the occasional spot or mark, a very good copy.
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