[Rarebooks] fa: THE EASTERN ORIGIN OF THE CELTIC NATIONS 1831- James Cowles Prichard

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, February 24. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

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Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


James Cowles Prichard: The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations Proved by a Comparison of Their Dialects with the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Teutonic Languages, Forming a Supplement to Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. London: Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, 1831. FIRST EDITION. Period half calf over cloth, marbled page-edges and endpapers; 8vo (22 cm); xii + 194 pp.

A landmark of philology, this treatise was the first to show the Indo-European origin of the Celtic languages, and preceded the work of Adolphe Pictet by which the latter made his reputation. Prichard (1786-1848), a polymathic physician and anthropologist, was among the first to assign all human races and ethnic groups to a single species. He was additionally a pioneer in the field of mental health, responsible for the concept of moral insanity (psychopathic personality) as a distinct disease; he was also the first person to name and define "senile dementia." Primarily known today for his medical and anthropological work, his brilliance as a philologist has been unjustly overshadowed. This book was also published with an Oxford imprint in the same year.

Binding shows wear to the corners, rubbing and sunning to the spine; contents quite clean and sound, firmly bound.