Difference between revisions of "Grammar of the Greek Language"

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A Grammar of the Greek Language: Originally Composed for the College-School, at Gloucester, in Which it has been the Editor's Design to Reject What, in the Most Improved Edition Of Cambden, is Redundant, to Supply What is Deficient, to Reduce to Order What is Intricate and Confused, and to Consign to an Appendix What is not Requisite to be Got by Heart

A Grammar of the Greek Language
Title page from A Grammar of the Greek Language, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary.
Author	William Camden
Editor	{{{editor}}}
Translator	{{{trans}}}
Published	Boston: by I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews
Date	1800
Edition	First American
Language	English
Volumes	3 volume set
Pages	2 p.l., 123 (i.e. 223), [1] p.
Desc.	(19 cm.)
Location	[[Shelf {{{shelf}}}]]
	[[Shelf {{{shelf2}}}]]

William Camden (1551-1623) was an English author and historian whose finest work was his production of the first topographical survey of England, titled Britannia and published in 1595. After receiving his education, Camden was appointed second master of Westminster School and eventually headmaster.^[1] In 1597 Camden was appointed Clarenceux king-of-arms and was relieved of schoolmaster’s chores and given more time for writing.^[2]

After beginning work on Britannia in 1577, Camden spent almost all of his free time traveling England collecting material for the book.^[3] Britannia was a county-by-county description of Great Britain and Ireland. It was particularly influential because of the depth in which it described the various parts of England.^[4] It included information about landscape, geography, antiquarianism, and history. In 1615 Camden published a history of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.^[5]

Britannia was by far Camden’s most influential piece of writing, but in 1595 Camden published a Greek grammar textbook, Grammar of the Greek Language, which was used extensively in secondary schools. This Greek grammar publication, as well as his historical account of Queen Elizabeth, also proved to be very influential during his lifetime and beyond.^[6]

Bibliographic Information

Author:

Title: A Grammar of the Greek Language: Originally Composed for the College-School, at Gloucester, in Which it has been the Editor's Design to Reject What, in the Most Improved Edition Of Cambden, is Redundant, to Supply What is Deficient, to Reduce to Order What is Intricate and Confused, and to Consign to an Appendix What is not Requisite to be Got by Heart

Published: Boston: by I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1800.

Edition: 1st American

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

Listed in the Jefferson Inventory of Wythe's Library as Greek grammar of Gloucester. 8vo. and kept by Thomas Jefferson. Later sold by Jefferson to the Library of Congress.^[7] Both the Brown Bibliography^[8] and George Wythe's Library^[9] on LibraryThing list the Boston first American edition (1800) of this title as the one intended by Jefferson's entry.

Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy

Bound in contemporary full leather. Purchased from David M. Lesser, ABAA.

View this book in William & Mary's online catalog.

References

1. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "William Camden", accessed October 31, 2013.
2. ↑ Walter H. Godfrey with Sir Anthony Wagner, "Clarenceux King of Arms", Survey of London Monograph 16: College of Arms, Queen Victoria Street accessed from British History Online October 31, 2013.
3. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "William Camden."
4. ↑ Ibid.
5. ↑ Ibid.
6. ↑ Ibid.
7. ↑ E. Millicent Sowerby, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 2nd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 5:70 [no.4757].
8. ↑ Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012) Microsoft Word file.
9. ↑ LibraryThing, s. v. "Member: George Wythe," accessed on April 28, 2013, http://www.librarything.com/profile/GeorgeWythe