A philosophical and practical grammar of the English language

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) and idiom of our language. I have left Lowth and Johnson, and mounted to the original writers as far back as the first Saxon laws and annals. The result is that many of the principles of grammar as taught in Lowth formerly, and now in Murray (whose book is nothing but Lowth's altered and enlarged), prove to be totally false; and I affirm that those grammars now taught introduce more errors than they correct" (letter from Webster to Joel Barlow, Nov. 12, 1807). Although this title was not as successful as his series of spellers and readers, Webster considered it one of his two most important works. Twenty years later, in a letter to Lemuel Shattuck (Nov. 18, 1829) Webster writes: "My Philosophical and Practical Grammar was first published in 1807, and a second edition in 1822. This work has been but little used; but, except for my quarto dictionary, I consider it as altogether the most valuable work I have ever published." Skeel 433; Sabin 102375; American Imprints 14192. (Inventory #: 60047)