Noah Webster’s American English

First edition of the two-volume American Dictionary.

Do you remember – especially before the advent of the internet - being in need of a definition or a proper spelling of a word and turning to your home’s, school’s, or work’s copy of a Merriam-Webster dictionary?  That dictionary you used was based on the life’s work of one ambitious American, Noah Webster.  Webster’s legacy continues ...

The Acquisitions Table: Dreka’s Dictionary Blotter

Dreka's Dictionary Blotter; or, Combination of Word-Book with a Blotting-Case. Philadelphia: Louis Dreka, [1873?] This book/blotter's decorative binding and striking fuchsia silk endpaper (seemingly still as bright as the day it was attached to the boards) look too glamorous to mark up, but apparently its previous owner disagreed. The ink stains inside prove it was used, ...