First and only edition of possibly the first French-English pronouncing dictionary.

‘Very great attention and unremitting perseverance are required of Foreigners ere they can acquire a tolerably correct Pronunciation of English’. The second part (English-French) is designed ‘likewise to correct Englishmen of vicious Accents and provincial Dialects’. And although pronouncing French ‘is by no means so difficult’ and there are scores of Englishmen who speak and write French fluently (o tempora, o mores!), the author knows of no prior pronouncing dictionary in French.

Perry (b. 1745?), lecturer at the Academy in Edinburgh and author of several much reprinted dictionaries (The Royal Standard English Dictionary, 1775, which featured pronunciations, and A General Dictionary of the English Language), had announced his English-French dictionary as ‘in the press’ at the end of 1792, but it did not appear until several years later. It was not as successful as his earlier publications despite including ‘several thousand words not inserted in any folio or octavo dictionaries now extant’. He was a schoolmaster in Kelso and then Edinburgh, but at some point in the 1780s and 90s seems to have taken a sabbatical from lexicography, training as a Royal Navy surgeon. Perry achieved particular (though unremunerative) success in America, where his Royal Standard Dictionary went through four editions and his simple Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue sold 300,000 copies.

ESTC records four copies only: British Library, Glasgow, Sir John Soane’s Museum, and a private collection (from which this is sold as a duplicate). Alston adds a copy at Prague University Library.

Alston, XII 732.

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