AN ABRIDGMENT OF L. MURRAY'S ENGLISH GRAMMAR. WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING AN EXEMPLIFICATION OF THE PARTS OF SPEECH, AND EXERCISES IN SYNTAX. DESIGNED FOR THE YOUNGER LEARNERS

Providence: Printed for William Wilkinson, by Heaton and William, 1804. 108pp. 12mo. Contemporary half calf and marbled- paper-covered wooden boards; leather spine perished. Covers quite worn; front board broken in half, stitched together at one time though stitching now gone. Contemporary ownership inscriptions on titlepage and pastedowns; some contemporary markings in text. Scattered light soiling. Still, a fairly good copy. A good, contemporary copy of this popular grammar which was often read to death. Lindley Murray (1745-1826), a Quaker grammarian, published his first grammar in 1795. It was followed by hundreds of editions: "Harvard Library's roster of 123 editions of the Abridgement includes only one of the 132 British or Quaker editions but includes the eighth Baltimore edition, the fifth from Canandaigua, four from Worcester, three from Pittsburgh, the third from Hallowell, Maine, sixteen editions from nine towns in New Hampshire and Vermont, and twenty-four from Boston. His secretary Elizabeth Frank thought a million copies of the Grammar were sold" - ANB. Despite the multitudinous copies of each printing, the books were very well-used by their readers and many have not survived. Such is the case with this edition - only two copies noted by Shaw & Shoemaker, at the American Antiquarian Society and Brown University; OCLC adds only one more copy, at Pensacola Christian College. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 6843. OCLC 24614061. ANB (online)