British Synonymy; or, An Attempt at Regulating the Choice of Words in Familiar Conversation.
London: Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, 1794.
Price: $750.00
About the item
First edition, with half-titles. [iv], viii, 423, [1]; [iv], 416 pp. 2 vols. 8vo. Bound in full mottled contemporary calf. Re-hinged and re-backed, preserving most of original spine. Small piece from margin of pp 257-8 and larger piece from pp. 301-2, vol. I, not affecting text. Sporadic foxing, heavy on last few leaves. Bookplate. Rothschild 1552; Alston, III, 524; Fleeman, 94.4PBS/1a; Hazen 3254; Courtney & Smith p. 173.
Item #244379
"An ambitious work, recalling in its preface her own Welsh origins, it specifically addressed itself to those who, like her husband, found English taxing ... Its discriminating definitions and characteristic excursions offer real insights into an eighteenth-century mind, and the kind of entertainment wholly absent from a dictionary of synonyms" (ODNB). Dr. Johnson gets frequent mention, and his poem on the coming of age of Sir John Lade is printed complete for the first time on pp. 359-60.
