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Rare First Edition of one of the most important works in the history of lexicography and a major source of the plagiarized proverbs Benjamin Franklin published in Poor Richard's Almanac. A fair copy. Ex-library: white numbers on spine, blindstamp, numbers and 'cancelled' stamp on title page, ghost of what was probably a pocket on the rear endpapers. Very old full-leather binding with 'Howell's Dictionary' on the title piece. Boards worn; corners extremely worn past leather to boards; boards once detached and now only reattached by several strips of cloth which are fairly loose. Ffep heavily chipped, with 1864 owner's name, reinforced at the foreedge. There is no half-title, first leaf is title page; two owner's names or notations, Anglesey Dec. 5 1663 and Stanford 1693. Obverse of title page blank; follows 3pp dedicatory 'To His Majesty Charles the Second'; another blank page is followed by the marvelous frontispiece which faces the introductory 'Poems by the Author.' A 6pp preface addressed 'to the tru Philologer' ends with a publisher's notice apologizing in advance for the inevitable errors in this first impression. There is some penciled marginalia in the preface and first few pages of the dictionary; there are also ink notes, much older, but nothing in the dictionary after the first 6 pages. Page 7 has piece torn from the foreedge with a few words lost. Text browning, few pages much more than most others, but everywhere legible. Dictionary followed by the phrasebook, with sections on anatomy, hunting, architecture, etc. Section on Navigation again has inked marginalia. The penciled underlines and check marks also appear occasionally. The first page of Section 50 of this part has a piece torn from foreedge, but no loss of words. The title page for this section (dated 1659) is bound in after the contents. The Proverbs or Paroimiographia section follows, also with a title page dated 1659. Apparently Franklin lifted proverbs from this section and published them in the same order (he was filling space in his Almanac and never intended or supposed that they would be ascribed to him). Full sub-title: Whereunto is Adjoined a large Nomenclature of the proper Terms (in all the four) belonging to several Arts and Sciences, to Recreations, to Professions both Liberal and Mechanick, &c. Divided into Fiftie Two Sections;With another Volume of the Choicest Proverbs in all the said Toungs, (consisting of diverse compleat Tomes) and the English translated into the other Three, to take off the reproach which useth to be cast upon Her, That She is but barren in this point, and those Proverbs She hath are both flat and empty. Moreover, There are sundry familiar Letters and Verses running in all Proverbs, with a particular Tome of the British or old Cambrian Sayed-Sawes and Adages, which the Author thought fit to annex hereunto, and make Intelligible, for their great Antiquity and Weight: Lastly, there are five Centuries of New Sayings, which, in tract of Time, may serve for Proverbs to Posterity.
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