AN ECLECTIC LIBRARY.

Old English Grammars, Dictionaries, Methods, Anthologies.

Grammars.

A Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue, with a praxis. By Erasmus Rask. New edition. Translated from the Danish by B. Thorpe. Copenhagen: S. L. Moller, 1830.

“The Anglo-Saxon Language,” says the Danish professor, “as well as its literature, holds unquestionably a rank inferior to the ancient Scandinavian, in respect both of intrinsic excellence, and of interest and importance, at least to the inhabitants of the North.”

A Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language. By Louis F. Klipstein. Revised and enlarged edition. New York: Geo. P. Putnam, 1853.

A Guide to the Anglo-Saxon Tongue: A grammar after Erasmus Rask. By Edward Johnston Vernon. London: John Russell Smith, 1861.

A Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon language; in which its forms are illustrated by those of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Friesic, Old Norse, and Old High German. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1888.
The same, 1871. —The copyright was entered in 1869, and subsequent editions seem to be only reprints.

An Outline of Anglo-Saxon Grammar. Published as an appendix to “An Anglo-Saxon Reader.” By James W. Bright. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1895 (reprinted 1921). —See “Anthologies” below for Bright’s Reader.

An Elementary Old English Grammar (Early West Saxon). By A. J. Wyatt. Cambridge, 1897.

“Old English Grammar has hitherto been taught in three ways, which may be called respectively the Germanic, the Gothic, and the independent methods. Sievers assumes that the student possesses a certain knowledge of Germanic, and makes it the basis of his classifications; Cosijn believes that the ready way to the Old English tongue is to learn Gothic first—a theory not difficult to reduce ad absurdum. Sweet considers such methods as these ‘positively injurious’; he prefers to give the learner a thousand and one isolated facts, and carefully to withhold every clue by which they may be grouped, classified and remembered. The method followed in this work is more or less novel, being a compromise between Sievers and Sweet, an attempt to hit the happy mean; for, while the basis of arrangement has been the practical convenience of the learner in studying the actually existing phenomena of the language, no pains have been spared in order that he may have nothing to unlearn in the further pursuit of the subject.”

An Old English Grammar. By Eduard Sievers. Translated and edited by Albert S. Cook. Third edition. Boston, &c.: Ginn and Company, 1903.

Old English Grammar. By Joseph Wright and Elizabeth Mary Wright. Second edition. Oxford, 1914.
Another copy.

An Old English Grammar. By E. E. Wardale. London: Methuen & Co., 1922 (reprinted 1955).

Dictionaries.

A Compendious Anglo-Saxon and English Dictionary. By the Rev. Joseph Bosworth. London: John Russell Smith, 1848.

“In parting with Dr. Bosworth, we cannot but express the delight which we have felt in the candor and sincerity with which his work has been conducted, and we rejoice to perceive that the paltry prejudices and supercilious spirit which have disgraced so many of his brother Saxonists of the present day, have not infected him. The controversy and the ill will between the English and continental school have already continued far too long. It cannot but retard the progress of the language about which they so valorously contend. We hope that his cotemporaries may see the error of their ways from the simplicity and candor of Dr. Bosworth.” ——From a review of the first edition in The New-York Review, October, 1838.

A Handy Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: based on Groschopp’s Grein. Edited, revised, and corrected, with grammatical appendix, list of irregular verbs, and brief etymological features. By James A. Harrison and W. M. Baskervill. New York and Chicago: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1885.

Methods.

A First Book in Old English. Grammar, reader, notes, and vocabulary. By Albert S. Cook. Third edition. Boston, etc.: Ginn and Company, 1921.

The Elements of Old English. Elementary grammar and reference grammar. By Samuel Moore and Thomas A. Knott. Ann Arbor: George Wahr, 1919.

Anthologies.

Hand-Book of Anglo-Saxon and Early English. By Hiram Corson, M.A., professor in the Cornell University. New York: Holt & Williams, 1871. —An anthology of English from Ælfric through Chaucer, with a vocabulary large enough to call a dictionary.

An Anglo-Saxon Reader, with philological notes, a brief grammar, and a vocabulary. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1878

An Anglo-Saxon Reader. Edited, with notes and glossary, by James W. Bright. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1892.

An Anglo-Saxon Reader. Edited with notes and glossary by Alfred J. Wyatt. Cambridge, 1919.

An Anglo-Saxon Primer, with grammar, notes, and glossary. By Henry Sweet. Third Edition. Oxford, 1886.

A Second Anglo-Saxon Reader, archaic and dialectical. By Henry Sweet. Oxford, 1887.

Anglo-Saxon and Norse Poems. Edited and translated by N. Kershaw. Cambridge, 1922. —Translations on facing pages.

Specimens of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Selected and edited by W. A. Craigie. Edinburgh: I. B. Hutchen, 1923.

I. Biblical and Classical Themes.