LINGUISTICS

[Horne Tooke [John Horne Tooke], radical and philologist, tried for treason in 1794.] Autograph Signature on receipt for ‘the third volume of EPEA PTEROENTA, or, The Diversions of Purley’.

Author: 
Horne Tooke [John Horne Tooke, born John Horne] (1736-1812), radical clergyman and philologist, Member of Parliament and supporter of John Wilkes, tried for treason in 1794
Publication details: 
31 January 1794. ‘No. 370.’
£120.00

See his long entry in the Oxford DNB. On one side of a 12.5 x 6.5 cm piece of laid paper, embossed with a tax stamp. In fair condition, lightly aged and discoloured. Very neatly written and set out: ‘Jan 31 . 1794 / No. 370. / Received of Wm. Phillips / fourteen shillings for the third volume of / EPEA PTEROENTA, or, The Diversions / of Purley. John Horne Tooke / £2. 2. 0’. See Image,

[G. Lionel Wright of Bristol.] Printed educational work on 'How Children may Read at the Age of 6', titled 'The Vocal System based on The Fundamental Laws of Language'.

Author: 
G. Lionel Wright [Allen, Davies & Co., Bristol printers; Victorian education; language; linguistics; pronunciation]
Publication details: 
Bristol: Printed by Allen, Davies & Co., Nelson Street & Rupert Street. [1902]
£120.00

20pp., 4to. Stapled into card wraps printed in blue and red. In fair condition, aged and worn, with vertical crease and rusted staples. The front inside wrap carries an 'Introductory Note' (including the claim: 'Half-an-hour's daily practice will produce material results in a very short time.') Labels and stamp of the Board of Education Library. The cover is illustrated with an engraving of two hands emerging from mountains and icebergs and shaking across the waters, above which are the Union Flag and two ensigns (Australia and Canada?), captioned 'Semper Fidelis'.

[ Graziado Isaia Ascoli, politician and linguist. ] Page of Autograph Corrected Manuscript, with presentation inscription signed 'Graziado Ascoli'.

Author: 
Graziadio Ascoli [ Graziadio Isaia Ascoli ] (1829-1907), politician and linguist
Publication details: 
No place or date.
£180.00

1p., 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and with central vertical crease. Consisting of a page bearing eleven lines of corrected manuscript, laid down onto an 8vo leaf, with the following presentation inscription at the foot: 'Vogliate sempre bene | al divotisso. vostro | Graziado Ascoli'. The manuscript begins: '[...] essi mettono in opera per chiarire diversamente il loro nazionalismo, [...]' and ends '[...] consequenti presenzoni delle cancellerie europee.' Ascoli was the first linguist to first to classify systematically the Italian dialects.

[ Companion volumes illustrated by John Leech. ] 'The Comic Latin Grammar; A new and fracetious Introduction to the Latin Tongue' and 'The Comic English Grammar; A new and facetious Introduction to the English Tongue.'

Author: 
[ Percival Leigh (1813-1889), satirist and humorist, contributor to 'Punch' [ John Leech (1817-1864), illustrator and caricaturist; Charles Tilt and Richard Bentley, London booksellers ]
Publication details: 
'Latin Grammar': London: Charles Tilt, Fleet Street. 1840. [ Printed by T. H. Coe, Old Change, St. Paul's. ] 'English Grammar': London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street. 1840. [ Printed by Samuel Bentley, Bangor House, Shoe Lane. ]
£100.00

Two good tight copies, on lightly aged paper, in worn original bindings with gilt decorations on front covers, with engravings on browning paper because of high acidity content. Both volumes with bookplate of Alan Angele and manuscript library shelf label. ONE: 'The Comic Latin Grammar'. 163 + [3]pp., 8vo. Eight engravings and numerous illustrations in text (the first engraving is positioned as frontispiece rather than at p.23 as specified).

[ J. Thierry, teacher of French in Georgian London. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('I. Therry') in French, to the editor of the Court Journal, regarding his publication in London of a work on French pronunciation ('

Author: 
J. Thierry, teacher of French in Georgian London [French pronunciation]
Publication details: 
40 Great Marlborough Street [London]. 25 May 1829.
£120.00

3pp., 4to. Bifolium. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper. Addressed, with red wax seal, on reverse of second leaf, 'To the Editor | of the | Court Journal.' The letter concerns a work published by Thierry in London in 1829, and titled in English, 'Forty-four lines, by the aid of which the pronunciation of the French may be learned in a few hours', and in French, 'Quarante-quatre vers, par le moyen desquels on peut apprendre la prononciation française en quelques heures'. (The only two copies on COPAC at Glasgow and Oxford.

[Georg Friedrich Creuzer.] Printed item: 'Oratio de Civitate Athenarum Omnis Humanitatis Parente, qua Literarum Graecarum Cathedram. In Academia Leidensi. Auspicaturus erat.'

Author: 
Frederici Creuzeri, Graecarum Latinarumque Literarum in Academia Heidelbergensis Professoris P. O. [Georg Friedrich Creuzer (1771-1858), German philologist and archaeologist]
Publication details: 
Lugduni Batavorum apud van Laar et Herdingh, 1809.
£120.00

[6] + 66pp., 8vo. Disbound. In fair condition, on aged and spotted paper. Creuzer's work was controversial. He was attacked by Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann, Johann Heinrich Voss and Christian Lobeck, and praised by Hegel.

[Printed pamphlet.] The Present State of the Cultivation of Oriental Literature. A Lecture delivered at a Meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, by the Director, Professor H. H. Wilson, 24th January, 1852.

Author: 
Professor H. H. Wilson [Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860), Sanskrit scholar], Director, The Royal Asiatic Society
Publication details: 
London: John W. Parker & Son, West Strand. 1852. [Printed by Harrison and Son, London Gazette Office, St. Martin's Lane; and Orchard Street, Westminster.]
£85.00

[2] + 25pp., 12mo. Stitched pamphlet in brown printed wraps. In fair condition, aged and worn. Uncommon: five copies on COPAC.

[Printed pamphlet.] English Line Writing: A New, Simple, and Exact System of Phonetics.

Author: 
Alexander Melville Bell, Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland, The Royal Scottish Society of Arts, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, &c., &c.
Publication details: 
Edgar S. Werner, New York. [circa 1886]
£400.00

[2] + 52pp., 8vo. In grey printed wraps carrying advertisements. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. With label and stamp of the Science & Art Department of the Educational Library, London. In tasteful modern quarter-bound boards of light and dark grey paper, with white printed label on front.

[Printed pamphlet, 'With compliments, from | THE AUTHOR'.] World-English: The Universal Language. By Alexander Melville Bell, Author of "Visible Speech," &c., &c.

Author: 
Alexander Melville Bell, Author of "Visible Speech," &c., &c. [(1819-1905), father of Alexander Graham Bell]
Publication details: 
New York: N. D. C. Hodges, 47, Lafayette Place. London: Trübner & Co. 57 and 59, Ludgate Hill. 1888.
£300.00

[1] + 29 + [5]pp., 8vo. Advertisements at front and rear. With front cover of brown printed wraps present, bearing the title in a 'globe' design. Printed in a box in the top right-hand corner of the cover is: 'With compliments from | THE AUTHOR, | 1525, Thirty-fifth Street, | Washington, D. C. | Examination and comment requested.' In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with slight loss at edges of front cover. In tasteful modern quarter-bound boards of light and dark grey paper, with white printed label on front. Uncommon: four copies on COPAC.

[Two printed pamphlets and a handbill.] A Reformed Alphabet designed to facilitate the Art of Learning to Read. [bound up with] The Reformed Reading Primer. [and] The International Alphabet, by Ralph Winnington Leftwich, M.D.

Author: 
R. W. Leftwich [Ralph Winnington Leftwich], M.D. [Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., London, and at Bath and New York; linguistics; phonetics]
Publication details: 
[Item One.] New York: Isaac Pitman & Sons, 33 Union Square. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1 Amen Corner, E.C. And at Bath. [1898] [Item Two:] Undated. [Item Three:] Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., London and at Bath and New York. [Undated]
£100.00

Both items in good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Stamp and label of the Education Department Reference Library, London. ONE: Pamphlet titled 'A Reformed Alphabet'. 10pp., 12mo. Stapled in grey printed wraps. The first four pages carry 'Phonetic Notation. The Reformed Alphabet. For teaching purposes only. Devised by R. W. Leftwich, M.D.' The last six pages carry an essay by Leftwich, beginning: 'The art of learning to read English, instead of being so easy as to form a stepping-stone to higher accomplishments, is really a very difficult task.

[Census of England and Wales, 1911.] Six printed documents comprising: 'Welsh Schedule' and 'enlarged' schedule, set of 'Explanatory Notes', and circular, memorandum and notice issued by the Welsh Department, Board of Education, Whitehall.

Author: 
[Census of England and Wales, 1911; Welsh Department, Board of Education, Whitehall, London; Bernard Mallet, Registrar-General; John Burns, President; Alfred T. Davies]
Publication details: 
Three of the documents from the Welsh Department, Board of Education, Whitehall. 1910 and 1911.
£250.00

The six items are in excellent condition, on lightly-aged paper. None of the forms have been filled in. From the Board of Education Reference Library, but with no indications of the fact. ONE: An 'enlarged copy of the front of the Occupier's Schedule' (so described in Item Five below), headed 'CENSUS OF ENGLAND AND WALES, 1911.' Printed in March 1911 by Eyre & Spottiswoode ('3/11. E. & S.'), on one side of a piece of 68 x 86 cm. paper.

Field notebook compiled by J. H. Driberg, later Lecturer in Anthropology, Cambridge University, compiled while a British colonial official, and dealing with local, linguistic and other matters.

Author: 
Jack Herbert Driberg (1888-1946), Lecturer in Anthropology, Cambridge University, 1934-42; and brother of the Labour MP and gossip columnist 'William Hickey' Tom Driberg (1905-1976); Uganda; Africa]
Publication details: 
The earliest dated entry from Longarim, Uganda, 27 March 1923; and the latest from Loriya HIll, 15 January 1925.
£450.00

A significant item, written, as his biographer Roy Abrahams explains, by a man who was 'almost single-handedly responsible for keeping academic social anthropology, and one might add the place of African research within it, alive in the small Archaeology and Anthropology Department in Cambridge in those otherwise rather barren days of the 1930s'. 45pp., 12mo. In a ruled, stitched notebook without cover. Written in pencil on stained and aged paper. Some of the text is faded.

Autograph Letter Signed ('L. Homburger'), in English, from the French linguist Lilias Homburger to the Cambridge anthropologist J. H. Driberg, discussing the difficulties arising from mixing anthropology and linguistics, with reference to Africa.

Author: 
Lilias Homburger (1880-1969), French linguist, authority on African languages [Jack Herbert Driberg (1888-1946), social anthropologist]
Publication details: 
Written from 'London Tuesday [no date]', giving the French address as '98 rue de la Tour | Paris | 16e'.
£135.00

2pp., 12mo. 28 lines. In fair condition, on aged high-acidity paper. Homburger begins by thanking Driberg for his 'papers' and expressing pleasure at their meeting. He encloses 'a list [not present] of feila words (just a few typical) and a draft of my paper not complete nor absolutely definite but which will shew you that I have pretty sound basis for my ideas as to the sénégalais nilotique.' 'Great difficulties', he considers, 'have arisen [...] from mixing anthropologie [sic] & linguistics.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Richd. Morris') from the philologist Rev. Richard Morris, Headmaster of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys, to J. T. Baron of Blackburn, giving publication details of two of his works.

Author: 
Rev. Richard Morris (1833-1894), English philologist, Headmaster of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys, 1875-1888
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys, Wood Green, London. 10 June 1882.
£60.00

2pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Very good on lightly-aged paper. In original envelope, with stamp and postmarks, addressed by Morris to Baron at 18 Griffin Street, Witton, Blackburn. Morris begins by giving details of the availability of his 'Etymology of Local Names' and 'Historical Outlines', before informing Baron (a brazen autograph hunter) that he does not know 'Wm. Morris' Address, but a letter addressed to him & sent to his publisher would be forwarded'.

The Description and Explanation of a "Universal Character;" or, Manner of Writing, that may be intelligible to the Inhabitants of every Country, although ignorant of each others Language; and which is to be learnt with facility, [...].

Author: 
[anon.] [Bath, Somerset; provincial printing; pasigraphy; linguistics; universal language]
Publication details: 
Bath: Printed by J. Hollway, Engraver and Copper-Plate Printer, Union Street.' [1830? 1833? 1835?]
£450.00

4to: 48 + [3] pp of letterpress, with additional leaf after title of 'Errata of Letter Press' and 'Errata in Plates'. Twenty numbered plates (the first two transposed), including one fold-out, and a final seventeen full-page unnumbered plates ('Examples'). Apparently complete. In original brown quarter binding, with cloth spine and paper boards. Ownership inscription of 'Lady Rolle' (1796-1885, born Louisa Barbara Trefusis) on front board. Text clear and complete. On aged and lightly-spotted paper, with wear to extremities and wraps, and cloth spine torn and worn.

Autograph Letter Signed to Wheatley.

Author: 
Edwin Norris (1795-1872), linguist and Assyriologist [Henry Benjamin Wheatley (1838-1917), bibliographer, editor and London topographer; Frederick James Furnivall]
Publication details: 
17 August 1865. Brompton.
£35.00

12mo, 2 pp. Thirteen lines of text. Good. The letter possibly relates to Furnivall's Early English Text Society, founded in 1865. He is enclosing a Post Office Order for a guinea, but, as he 'said to Mr Furnivall last year', he does not consider himself a subscriber, 'wishing to reserve the right of withdrawal in case of finding it inconvenient to pay, which will certainly be the case when I give up my official position'. Nevertheless asks Wheatley to remind him 'when the time comes for collection'.

Typed Letter Signed to G. K. Menzies, Secretary, Royal Society of Arts.

Author: 
Sir Philip Joseph Hartog [School of Oriental Studies, London Institution]
Publication details: 
18 December 1916; on letterhead of the School of Oriental Studies, London Institute.
£28.00

(1864-1947). Chemist, Director of the International Institute Examinations Enquiry, and first Vice Chancellor of the University of Dhaka. One page, folio. Very good. Marked 'Personal' and bearing the Society's stamp. He is sorry Menzies has been ill and hopes 'the cure is radical and that you will soon be quite all right again.

Autograph Note Signed to the Secretary, Royal Society of Arts.

Author: 
Professor Henry Gibson Atkins
Publication details: 
5 October 1915; '8, Granville Park | Blackheath, S.E.'
£25.00

British linguist (1871-1942), Professor of German in the University of London. One page, 12mo. Very good. Docketed and bearing R.S.A. stamp. 'In answer to your letter of October 2nd., I have pleasure in sending a Report on the Viva Voce German Examinations held in 1915.' Signed 'H. G. Atkins'.

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