WALKER, John

A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language; or, Sheridan's Dictionary Improved

Dublin: P. Wogan, 1806. Stated fourth edition. Octavo (21.5cm). Contemporary calf, amateur rebacking; plain endpapers; xx,78pp, largely unpaginated. Sound and sturdy, though generally rubbed and worn rebacked with tissue with original spine label laid down, losses to first two blanks, minor worming to prelims, occasional spotting but largely clean: Good or better.

Second Dublin edition of "one of the most popular and influential dictionaries ever published" (Landau, Dictionaries: The Art & Craft of Lexicography, 57). This is the fourth revision of the text, which was first printed in London in 1791 and "went through countless editions," with "an incalculably great effect on the treatment of pronunciation" (57). Walker was a prescriptivist, preferring pronunciations based on spelling and etymology over some in contemporary use; and "[f]or the millions of linguistically insecure immigrants pouring into the United States in the early nineteenth century and for the legions of upwardly mobile middle-class people, Walker's advice was a much appreciated help" (58). "[M]any pronunciations still taught as correct in our schools can be tracted to Walker's dictionary" (57). See VANCIL, Catalog of Dictionaries, p.248.

Price: $100.00

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