"Earthshine" wrote:I also own a -huge- dictionary from 1905 and a book by Arthur Scott Baily called
The Tales of Fatty Coon from 1915. It's a folksy-type whimsical collection of stories about an anthropomorphized raccoon, including one story in which he and his friends played 'barber shop' and shaved his tail
This reminds me of a book that my mom got me from a flea market a few months ago entitled "Cobbett's English Grammar" by Alfred Ayres (she got it for me since I'm an English major). It's a book with grammar rules and similar things that was first published in London, England back in December 1818. The version of the book I own was written in 1883 and printed in 1919.
There's some unintentional funny parts in it. For example, the book starts off in the Editor's Note with the sentence, "COBBETT'S GRAMMAR is probably the most readable grammar ever written." Kind of pompous of the editor to say that, wouldn't you say?
There's also a section of the book called "Errors and Nonsense in a King's Speech", where the author proceeds to mock the statesmen and legislators of the time and their ability to write speeches for the king. A paragraph from this section says the following:
"How destitute of judgment and of practical talent these persons have been, in the capacity of Statesmen and of Legislators, the present miserable and perilous state of England amply demonstrates; and I am now about to show you that they are equally destitute in the capacity of writers. There is some poet who [that] says:"
"Of all the arts in which the learned excel,
The first in rank is that of writing well." *
*This quotation should run;
"Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well."
SHEFFIELD, Essay of Poetry.
Pretty harsh words from the author, isn't it?