[Rarebooks] fa: JOHN CLELAND - SPECIMEN OF AN ETIMOLOGICAL VOCABULARY 1768 - (Author of Fanny Hill on Philology)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 16. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/gtfqm2d

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

[John Cleland:] Specimen of an Etimological [sic] Vocabulary, or, Essay, by means of the Analitic [sic] 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: Printed for L. Davis and C. Reymers, printers to the Royal Society, 1768. FIRST EDITION. Tall 8vo (21.5 cm) in early/period half calf and marbled boards, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; xvi + 231 + [1] pp. Alston V, 363; ESTC T4131.

A curious philological work by John Cleland, better known as the author of the pornographic masterpiece Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749). The present essay, a less frisky work, was nevertheless provocative in its way. Here Cleland tries to prove that ancient Celtic was the Ur-tongue, the mother language from which all, or at least most, other languages evolved. He argues that Hebrew, Greek and Latin, for example, all derive from Celtic roots. An idiosyncratic thesis, to say the least, but Lowndes describes it as "an esteemed work."

Binding with light rubbing to the boards; front (blank) endpapers loosening a bit; engraved armorial bookplate of the antiquary Charles Joseph Harford, F.A.S. (1764-1830), who presumably is responsible for the extensive penciled notes on the endpapers and, occasionally, in the margins (all fairly light and easily erasable); a few small spots to the leaves, else quite clean and sound, firmly bound.