first edition
1807 · New Haven
by Webster, Noah
New Haven: Brisban & Brannan, 1807. First edition, 12mo, pp. 250, original full calf, gilt-paneled spine; light dampstaining to the upper gutter; all else very good and sound. Of this small grammar Webster wrote in an 1805 letter to the American publisher Mathew Carey: "I am compiling a Grammar upon what appear to be the true idioms & fundamental principles of the Language--which I hope to have ready for the press within a year..." Webster's goal was to lay out the principles of American English, based on its own structure, thereby discarding previous grammatical systems which served British English. In it he has developed "the real structure (truncated)