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Approx. 55 lines, in ink, with numerous corrections, deletions and additions. 25x19.5 cm. (9¾x7¾").

Leaf from the manuscript of Noah Webster's American Dictionary OR 1828, the most influential of all American dictionaries "which almost at once became, and has remained, the standard English dictionary in the United States" - Printing & the Mind of Man, which goes on to note that Webster, who had been active in the American Revolution, "was an ardent nationalist, and...wanted to stress the political separation from Britain by the cultivation of a separate American language... Under the influence of his friend Benjamin Franklin he turned his attention to `a reformed mode of spelling'; and although he rejected the radical phonetic innovations proposed by Franklin, he went far enough to give many printed American words a distinctive appearance... the book marked a definite advance in modern lexicography, as it included many non-literary terms and paid great attention to the language actually spoken..." The recto of the leaf has definitions for about nine words, from Admit ("To suffer to enter; to grant entrance; whether int a place, or an office, or into the mind or consideration...") to Admixture ("The substance mingled with another..."). On the verso is a nine-line definithion of Admonish, which has been crossed out, and another begun. There are numerous corrections, offering a glimpse into the mind and method of the great lexicographer. The great bulk of the manuscript is at the Morgan Litary, but perhaps some 50 or so leaves were otherwise dispersed by Webser, most to his family members. Manuscript leaves from Webster's dictionary are perhaps the only examples of s holograph manuscript of  Printing and the Mind of Man work that are possible to obtain.