Specimen of an etimological vocabulary, or, essay, by means of the analitic method, to retrieve the antient Celtic. By the author of a pamphlet entitled, The Way to Things by Words and to Words by Things
London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1768. First edition, 8vo, pp. xvi, 231, [1]; 19th-century full green cloth, maroon morocco label on spine; a nice copy with occasional pencil underlinings and marginalia in pencil, presumably in the hand of W. W. Chynowerth Pope whose ownership signature is on the flyleaf; otherwise, a near fine copy. Cleland is best known as a novelist, and the author of Fanny Hill or the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1750), a work "so licentious that Cleland was summoned before the privy council where he pleaded his poverty as an excuse" (DNB). He turned his attention to the study of the English language and wrote at least two books on philological subjects. "How ill Cleland was equipped for philological studies may be gathered from the spelling of a pamphlet issued by him in 1787: Specimen of an etimological vocabulary…" Lowndes, however, calls it "an esteemed work." Alston V, 363 and 364; Vancil, p. 52. Item #29241
Price: $750.00
