Author: MARSDEN, William.
Title: A dictionary of the Malayan language, in two parts, Malayan and English and English and Malayan.London, printed for the author by Cox and Baylis, 1812. 4to. Set in roman and Arabic types with incidental Devanagari and italic. Modern blue cloth with a morocco spine label, retaining the nonpareil-marbled edges from the previous contemporary binding.
Description: [1], [1 blank], XV, [1], 589, [1], [2 blank] pp.First edition of Marsden's excellent Malay dictionary, which quickly succeeded all earlier dictionaries and set the standard for those that followed. The author's 16-page introduction discusses the language and the arrangement of the dictionary and ends with a brief table showing the Malay alphabet, with reference to the grammar for a more detailed one. The main part of the book is a Malay-English dictionary, arranged alphabetically following the Arabic script. The headwords are in the Arabic script followed by a phonetic transcription and an often very detailed definition in English, sometimes including related Hindi words in the Devanagari script. The shorter English-Malay dictionary gives the English headwords alphabetically, usually followed by several possible translations in the Arabic script, each with a phonetic transcription but without the detailed explanations of the Malay-English dictionary.With some slight browning or foxing and with a small worm hole running through the entire book, but otherwise in very good condition, with only an occasional minor marginal defect. A good mix of scholarly rigour and practical application.l Cordier, Bibl. Indosinica, col. 1384.

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