Description: Book titled "The Royal Standard English Dictionary" (title page missing) by William Perry, published in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Aug 16, 1777. William Perry (1747-post 1805), an active Scottish schoolteacher and lexicographer, was interested in the prescription of norms for a "correct" pronunciation of standard English, which was in line with the language guardians of the time. Although Perry shares a few characteristics with Thomas Sheridan (1719-1788) and James Buchanan (fl. 1753-1773) as he himself maintains in the Preface to his "The Royal Standard English Dictionary" first published in Edinburgh in 1775, he also reveals a certain dissatisfaction with the way "the sounds of words are expressed" by the other two 18th-century scholars. The first American edition was printed by Isaiah Thomas in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1788, from the fouth British edition. This book has a sketch on the back of the front cover of a woman holding a parasol being followed by a man holding a bird in his left hand, over the insciption, "Published in / Edinburg Scotland / 1777 Aug 16."
Link to share this object record: https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+72.014 |