Lot Details
Lot 144
JEFFERSON, THOMAS An essay towards facilitating instruction in the Anglo-Saxon. For the use of the University of Virginia.
New York: John F. Trow, 1851. First edition, one of 400 copies (according to Staney R. Hauer's essay in PMLA). Publisher's cloth, the cover gilt lettered and stamped in blind, rebacked with a later black cloth spine. 11 x 9 inches; 43 pp. A few leaves becoming sprung, old dampstain in the upper margin at gutter, spotting and occasional stains, with the booklabel of "John Dillingham, Hav. Coll. PA 1870" and the booklabel of William Safire which has offset the facing endpaper, Safire has also signed the front blank in ink.
A rare work first printed here "By order of the Board of Trustees for the University of Virginia." The book opens printing a 1798 letter from Jefferson to Herbert Cross in London regarding language and mentioning Samuel Johnson. The main text prints Jefferson's essay on the title subject and opens with "The importance of the Anglo-Saxon dialect towards a perfect understanding of the English language seems not to have been duly estimated by those charged with the education of youth; and yet it is unquestionably the basis of our present tongue." The book closes with Jefferson's application of the dialect to the Book of Genesis.
Thomas Jefferson had a long interest in the Anglo-Saxon dialect and this essay is now believed to have been written around 1820 as he planned to include Anglo-Saxon in the curriculum for the University of Virginia. While this edition is held institutionally, we trace no copies at auction or available among the trade. According to Hauer, in 1849 it was resolved by the University to print 400 copies of Jefferson's Essay "on good paper, in quarto form, and in good style," and the 1851 edition is the basis for all subsequent editions.
The book is discussed in depth in: WALKER, JESSICA LORRAINE. Our Anglo-Saxon Ancestors: Thomas Jefferson and the role of English History in the Building of the American Nation. University of Western Australia, School of Humanities, 2007. See also HAUER, S. Thomas Jefferson and the Anglo-Saxon Language in PMLA, October 1983, p. 879-898.
C From the Collection of the late William Safire
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