[Rarebooks] fa: FRANCIS GROSE - A CLASSICAL DICTIONARY OF THE VULGAR TONGUE 1785 - Fine 1st Ed.

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, September 28. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/nkezzuv

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

[Francis Grose:] A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. London: Printed for S. Hooper, 1785. FIRST EDITION. Tall 8vo (21.5 cm) in early/period calf with borders in gilt, rebacked to style in modern morocco, gilt-lettered morocco spine label, marbled endpapers; [2], vii, [205] pp. ESTC T138152.

Modest wear to the boards with some bumping to the corners, corner of one (blank) endpaper clipped, a few small scattered spots to the leaves, but a fine, fresh, handsome example of the scarce first edition of this classic dictionary of slang and cant. Engraved armorial bookplate of William Richard Berryman, of Stoke, and later small booklabel of Gerrit Komrij (1944-2012), a leading Dutch poet, novelist, playwright and critic, as well as a noted book collector who specialized in the "rare and absurd", the off-color and the scatological, low-life literature, ancient books about farting, etc.

Of Grose's Dictionary, the great slang lexicographer Eric Partridge wrote: "Every entry bears the unmistakable imprint of the vivid accuracy and the jolly, jovial, earthiness of the greatest antiquary, joker, and porter-drinker of his day, and one of the happiest wits of the late 18th century...Nowhere more than in The Vulgar Tongue did he display his scholarship and industry...The indelicacy and extreme vulgarity of the work renders it unfit for ordinary use, still it must be admitted that it is by far the most important work which has ever appeared on street or popular language...it is really an extraordinary book."