BROWN, Charles Philip.
A Dictionary, English and Telugu Explaining the English Idioms and Phrases in Telugu.
Madras, printed at the Christian Knowledge Society's Press 1852. The half title is dated 1853. Thick octavo mid 20th century plain half calf; [4],8,xxx,1392pp. Binding separated from the text block. A variety of comparatively small flaws: two torn pages repaired without loss, another small repair elsewhere, a touch of bug nibbling of the first and last leaves; in all rather good. The binding is not so handsome but it is fitting: a note on the front fly tells us the book was given to the LMS, Gooty in 1940 and rebound by the Gooty High School Press. Gooty is not far from Brown's longtime home in Cuddapah (Kadapa). In 1972 the book is given to St Andrews Hall Library or any Telugu speaking missionary, so it was likely in the neighbourhood for well over a century.
¶ The first English-Telugu dictionary. Its companion Telugu-English dictionary also appeared in 1852. A second edition appeared in 1903 and is still in print."Telugu literature was dying out, the flame was guttering in the socket," Brown wrote in his autobiography, so with proper unbalanced zealotry he maintained a private army of scribes and scholars with his meagre civil servant salary, collecting and transcribing manuscripts, putting in, he said, five hours each morning before he went off to work.In case you are also baffled: the portrait of Brown on Wikipedia is not a picture of any human born in 1798. Maybe someone else can get them to correct it, I couldn't.

Richard Neylon, Bookseller
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Keywords: social sciences language linguistics India Telugu c19th dictionaries dictionary literature education