THE FIRST AMERICAN-PRINTED DICTIONARY (INCOMPLETE)
Very rare (partial) first edition of the first dictionary printed in America, William Perry's "Royal Standard ENGLISH DICTIONARY (Being the FIRST Work of the Kind printed in AMERICA), printed by and for Isaiah Thomas at Worcester, January 1, 1788, pages present though p. 464 ("shotten"), balance and back cover gone, leather covering spine also largely gone, front cover attached and intact. The author was an English lexicographer who first published this work at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1775. It become immensely popular, having "an extensive circulation both in Great Britain and in the United States." (See Vizetelly's "The Development of The Dictionary of The English Language"). Printer Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831) was a noted American patriot who performed the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Massachusetts and reported the first account of the battles of Lexington and Concord. The pages show mostly even toning, being all bound and in overall nice clearly readable shape. Missing leaf 13/14 as well. Defective, yes, but nevertheless extremely scarce.