Table Of ContentAN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
NINETEENTH-CENTURY GRAMMARS OF ENGLISH
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E. F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series V
LIBRARY & INFORMATION SOURCES IN LINGUISTICS
Advisory Editorial Board
Mohammed H. Bakalla (Riyadh); Jivco Boyadjiev (Sofia)
Frank Di Trolio (Gainesville, Fla.); Mark Janse (Gent)
Aleksander Szwedek (Torun); Joseph L. Subbiondo (Stockton, Calif.)
Matsuji Tajima (Fukuoka, Japan)
Volume 26
Manfred Görlach
An Annotated Bibliography of Nineteenth-Century Grammars of English
AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY
GRAMMARS OF ENGLISH
MANFRED GÖRLACH
University of Cologne
With a Foreword by
IAN MICHAEL
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
The illustrations inserted at the end of chapters are reproduced from Emil Reicke, Magister und
Scholaren. Illustrierte Geschichte des Unterrichtswesens. Leipzig: Diederichs, I90I.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Görlach, Manfred.
An annotated bibliography of 19th-century grammars of English / Manfred Görlach : with a
foreword by Ian Michael.
p. cm. - (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series V, Library
and information sources in linguistics, ISSN 0I65-7267; v. 26)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes.
I. English language-I9th century-Grammar-Bibliography. I. Title. II. Series: Amsterdam studies
in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series V, Library and information sources in linguistics
: v. 26.
Z20I4.G7G67 I998
[PEI098]
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ISBN 90 272 3752 2 (Eur.) /I556I9 256 8 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright I998 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other
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John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • I070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 275I9 • Philadelphia PA I9II8-05I9 • USA
Frontispiece. Two scenes of 'comical grammar teaching' surrounded by the
authorities Lindley Murray (cf. EL 106), 'Mr Vyse' and Dr Dilworth (cf. EL
4), reproduced from Percival Leigh. 1840. The comic English grammar (no.
1073).
Preface
English-speaking people seem to have had, for three centuries, a confused
relationship with grammar. They have not, in the schools, thought about in
very deeply, but they have thought it important. They have disagreed amongst
themselves as to what, in any particular context, the term should cover and on
the meaning of its constituents. They admit the conceptual confusion of the
parts of speech and even teach it to young children; but they are intolerant of
socially determined variations of usage, which they denounce as ungrammati-
cal. Yet they have produced English grammars in quite astonishing quantities -
each much like most of the others. Is this vast contradictory output an
expression of obstinate individualism? Is it powered by commercial pressures?
Today 'grammar' still carries a more powerful charge than do other
linguistic terms. To the journalist, to the writer of indignant letters to the press,
grammar seems to represent both a threat and something to be defended: a
threat because language is dangerous; it makes innovative and disturbing ideas
easy to handle; it spreads them. But grammar represents also an aspect of
society which needs to be defended because it is stable and reassuring as
correct spelling and received pronunciation.
Defensive and proprietorial attitudes to grammar are, in Britain,
educationally harmful. Trivial matters of correctness are made to stand for the
whole study of language: a study we have not yet learnt to handle at the school
level.
At their best nineteenth-century English grammars treated a broad range
of linguistic topics; at their very best they did so in a fresh and experimental
spirit. The many grammars which were merely repetitive derived their
popularity and many of their limitations from attitudes which are still common
today; but these attitudes do not explain the surprising quantity in which the
grammars were produced. This apparent over-production is a striking and
puzzling phenomenon.
In order to examine the problem we need to know how many grammars
were produced, and as much about them as we can record. This is not a trivial
or neurotic undertaking: it points to a significant aspect of social history. In
this vast project Manfred Görlach has made an heroic and all but complete
examination of nineteenth-century English grammars. I may describe his
important work in these terms because I have had the privilege of being
associated with it, sufficiently to see how skillful it is but not sufficiently to
make my praise of it immodest.
Ian Michael
List of Abbreviations
218.. = second edition in 18..
Am. = American
anon. = anonymous/-ly
anr. = another
al8.. = ante
c. = cent
cl8.. = circa, about
cf. = compare
cm = centimetres
corr. = corrected
DNB = Dictionary of National Biography
E = etymology
ed. = edition
EL .= English Linguistics (reprint series)
enl. = enlarged
facs. = facsimile
impr. = improved
Lit. = literature dealing with the individual grammar
n.d. = no date
no. = number/entry in this bibliography
n.p. = no place
NUC = National Union Catalogue
0 = orthography
OESP = standard sequence of orthography, etymology, syntax and
prosody
P = prosody
p.c. = personal communication
pr. = printed
pseud. = pseudonym
pl8.. = post
Q/A = question and answer (catechism)
r18.. = reprinted
repr. = reprint(ed)
rev. = revised
S = syntax
ster. = stereotyped
UL = University Library
vol. = volume
Contents
Frontispiece v
Preface vi
List of Abbreviations vii
Contents viii
Part I:
An annotated bibliography of 19th-century grammars of English
(ABiNGE)
1. Introduction 1
2. The history of the ABiNGE project 2
3. The aims of the bibliography 4
3.1 The definition of the genre 4
3.2 Authors 5
3.3 Titles of works 5
3.4 Places and publishers, pages and sizes 6
3.5 Editions and years 6
3.6 Descriptions of contents and evaluations 6
3.7 Locations 7
3.8 British as against American publications 7
3.9 Studies of authors and individual grammars 7
4. Topics worthy of detailed study 7
5. Reprints 10
A) Most important titles 11
B) Supplementary titles 12
6. Conclusion 13
7. How to read the annotated bibliography 14
8. Sigils indicating locations in libraries 16
9. Other sources 17
10. References 18
19th-century Grammars of English iX
Part II:
Alphabetical List of 19th-century English Grammars by
British and American Authors 24
Appendix: Titles not included in the main list 357
0. 18th-century works 357
1. Books on Anglo-Saxon & language history 364
2. Treatises on language (incl. educational and
philosophical reflexions) 368
3. Treatments of individual levels (spelling, pronunciation,
punctuation, morphology, derivation) 371
4. Books on logic, rhetoric, elocution, style and composition 376
5. Advice on good English 378
6. Bilingual grammars and books meant for foreign learners 379
7. Dialect 384
8. Minimal grammars in dictionaries and encyclopedic works 384
9. Introductions to other studies 385
Indices 386
A: Index of names 386
Al: Revisions of earlier grammars listed under the editors'
names and keys etc. adapted to individual grammars 386
A2: Second authors (revisers, translators, and pseudonyms) 386
A3: Mentions of other grammars (mainly as sources) 387
A4: Judgements quoted from earlier grammarians 389
B: Index of places of publication (publishers for London) 389
Bl: Provincial (outside London / the U.S.) 389
B2: London (by publishers) 390
B3: The United States 393
B4: Colonial 395
B5: The European Continent 395
An annotated bibliography
of 19th-century grammars of English1 (ABiNGE)
1. Introduction
The beginnings of the writing of grammar books of the vernacular before 1800
have been documented and analysed very fully (cf. Alston, 1967-72 & 1974,
Leitner 1986, Leonard 1929, Michael 1970 and 1987, Robins 1986,S undby et
al. 1991 and Vorlat 1975); various studies have taught us to understand the
development of grammatical description and the teaching of English to 1800,
when prescriptive grammarians had left few areas uncharted and unregularized.
The explosive increase of grammar books after Lowth's and Priestley's works
of the 1760s is especially noteworthy - such numbers point ahead to the 19th
century when education became accessible to much wider circles of society in
a great number and variety of schools and the teaching of grammar came to be
obligatory from 1870/72 with the advent of general education.
Whereas these general trends of the 19th century are well-known to
scholars working in different disciplines of social history, and the history of
education in particular, it is still true that major sections of the evidence are
largely uncollected. This is especially so for school books: there is virtually a
gap between the 18th century and the present grammatical tradition (which is
partly based on the work of non-natives like Maetzner, Jespersen, Poutsma and
Visser).
This gap became obvious to me when I was writing a chapter on contem
porary grammar teaching for my book on English in 19th-century England
(Görlach 1995, fc). Although we know that the notable expansion of literacy
and the reading public, and their views on correctness and good style, are
based on the (largely prescriptive) grammars used in school, there has been
only little research on this interrelationship so far - unsurprisingly when we
realize that most of the spade work remains to be done. Although we have very
useful surveys on 19th-century teaching in the handbooks by Michael (1987)
and Howatt (1984), and Michael's work contains a list of over 800 19th-cen
tury school books collected in a very informative appendix, there is no compre
hensive bibliography of school grammars to date.
This account would have been impossible without the expert help of Ian Michael who
shared his data and expertise in an unusually generous way, and to whom this book is
dedicated. R.C. Alston also greatly helped by making information on the holdings of the
British Library, Bodleian and American libraries available. Katja Lenz and Kristina Ritter
were of enormous help in sifting the data and putting them on the computer. Special thanks
are due to the staffs of the British Library and the Bodleian Library, who supplied me with
excessive numbers of books, and my colleagues R.F.S. Hamer, Mervyn Jones and Andrew
Watson, who generously provided me with accommodation in Oxford and London.
