Author: WEBSTER. NOAH.
Title: AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Description: S. Converse. Printed by Hezekiah Howe, New Haven. 1828. FIRST EDITION. 2 4to Volumes. (11.8 x 9.2 inches). Portrait frontispiece. With the additions leaf but without the initial advert leaf. Some minor spots to a few leaves but overall a very good, bright and clean, wide margined copy with the fore and lower edges untrimmed. Finely bound in recent period-style binding of full diced Russia. Spines with wide raised bands, each with triple gilt rules. Compartments ruled, decorated and lettered in gilt. Elaborate decorative gilt borders to the boards. Marbled endpapers. A bright and attractive copy of this famous dictionary. --------- First edition of the dictionary that almost at once became, and has remained, the standard English dictionary in the United States; one of 2,500 copies. Webster wanted to stress the political separation from Britain by the cultivation of a distinct American language, and so, under the influence of his friend Benjamin Franklin, turned his attention to "a reformed mode of spelling" and gave many printed American words their distinctive appearance. "The book marked a definite advance in modern lexicography, as it included many non-literary terms and paid great attention to the language actually spoken. Moreover, his definitions of the meanings of words were accurate and concise (Sir James Murray, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, called him 'a born definer of words') and have for the greater part stood the test of time superbly well. In fact, Webster succeeded in breaking the fetters imposed upon American English by Dr Johnson, to the ultimate benefit of the living languages of both countries" (Printing and the Mind of Man). -------- Grolier, American 36; PMM 291; Skeel 583; Sabin 102335.

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