Görlach, Manfred. 1998. An Annotated Bibliography of Nineteenth-century Grammars of English. Benjamins. pp. 395.

During the nineteenth century, English grammars were published in enormous numbers. These grammars are, in fact, remarkably similar in content. Why, then, did they continue to flood the market, was this due to commercial pressure, or to the stubborn conviction that each individual author might have something new to offer? This is a question asked by Ian Michael in his preface to Manfred Görlach’s Annotated Bibliography of Nineteenth-century Grammars of English, and it is the purpose of the book to assist scholars interested in the phenomenon to find an answer to it. The bibliography, which is the result of the combined efforts of Michael and Görlach, contains over 1900 items, of which only less than half have actually been seen by either of the compilers. The main reason for this appears to have been lack of time and money, as Görlach himself observes on page 3 of his introduction. Indeed, the task to collect a complete database of nineteenth-century grammars is a formidable one, and Görlach’s attempt to do so at all is labelled ‘heroic’ by Michael. The best way to determine to what extent the attempt can be called successful seemed to be to assess the kind of information presented on the basis of a comparison with what has already been published on the subject so far. The two sources used here for such a comparison are R.C. Alston’s Bibliography of the English Language (Vol. 1, English Grammars Written in English, E.J. Arnold & Son, 1965) and Bernard Barr’s inventory of the Murray holdings in the York Minster Library (‘Towards a Bibliography of Lindley Murray’, in Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, ed., 1996, Two Hundred Years of Lindley Murray, Nodus Publikationen, 217–29).

While Alston’s bibliography includes the year 1800, Görlach begins with this year: there is therefore a very small amount of overlap. Of the eight items in Alston, six can also be found in the main bibliography in Görlach, though with some differences: the attribution to John Binns and Thomas Coar of the anonymous Essay Towards an English Grammar for Ackworth School (no. 169) has been accepted without indicating that the book had originally been published anonymously (Alston uses square brackets in such cases). Such knowledge, however, would be important to anyone studying the publication history of a grammar. The following entry (no. 170) contains another title by a John Binns. Here, the author’s life-dates have been given, 1772–1860, while in the previous entry only his profession is mentioned (schoolmaster). The question naturally presents itself whether these two men are one and the same person; if they are (see also below), the same question can be asked with respect to an earlier item in Alston, i.e. The Youth’s Guide, to the English Language, also by John Binns, which was published in 1788 when the author would appear to have been only sixteen years old. William Angus’s Epitome of English Grammar has been included in Görlach as well, and so have Mrs Eves’s Grammatical Play-thing, William Woodbridge’s Plain and Concise Grammar of the English Language, and J. Haywood’s Short Introduction to the English Tongue, though without expanding the initial to its full form (cf. Alston’s ‘J[ames]’). The anonymous Short and Easy Rules for Attaining a Knowledge of English Grammar can be found under S (the page headers, which do read "Anon.", are not very helpful as a means to speed up a search); [Thomas] Wright’s English Grammar has not been included, while Alexander Barrie’s Epitome of English Grammar has been placed in the appendix, along with many other works that ‘did not classify for [the] bibliography’ (p. 357) – but why this particular item would not have done so is not clear at first sight. Comparing the items discussed here shows a different interest on the part of Görlach compared to Alston’s: while Alston’s bibliography is more aimed at providing the physical details of a book, Görlach looks at content as well. Haywood is a good example: its comment reads ‘Conventional but thorough; second edition much improved; nine parts of speech’ (p. 169).

Ash’s Grammatical Institutes (1^st ed. 1760) and Lowth’s Short Introduction to English grammar (1762) are not included, nor should they have been; they do, however, occur in the appendix, in section ‘0. 18^th Century Works’, the reason given being that ‘they testify to the survival of earlier grammars in the 19^th century’ (p. 357). But the information provided compares unfavourably with that in Alston: for Ash (no. 1941), Görlach notes that he has located ‘at least 13 eds. up to 1823’, while Alston lists about fifty editions and reprints until that year. The same applies to Lowth (no. 1980), for whose grammar Görlach observes that there were ‘At least 12 eds. up to 1811’: once again, Alston lists a great deal more. As for Lindley Murray’s English Grammar (1795), it is listed both in the main bibliography and in the appendix. Apparently, Görlach did not consider Barr’s article for the publication history he offers of the grammar (the article does appear in the list of references following the introduction to the bibliography, p. 19). The publication history of Murray’s grammar in its various forms is extremely complicated. As Görlach observes on p. 253: ‘The editions need a great deal of sorting out, between the one-volume and two-volume editions, between British and American editions, between Murray’s own books and versions bearing (and exploiting) his name’. Apart from providing a list of the different publications by Murray currently in possession of the York Minster Library, Barr in his article has attempted to put order into the chaos of Murray reprints and editions by sorting them out into regular and irregular editions. Incorporating the material of the article would, moreover, have given a fuller picture of the publication history of the grammar. Thus, Barr lists a ‘new edition’ for the 1808 two-volume edition of the grammar (no. 1294) in the same year as well as Volume I of the 7^th edition of 1842. As for the grammar included in Appendix 0 (no. 1981), Barr’s list contains twenty-two editions and reprints between 1800 and 1805 instead of Görlach’s 7, as well as evidence for an 11^th edition (1805), a 19^th (1809), 25^th (1814), 27^th (1815), 48^th (1836), 49^th (1838), 50^th (1839), 52^nd (1842) and 60^th (1858) one; furthermore, including the information from the article in the bibliography would have provided the location as York Minster Library for the majority of the editions and reprints in addition to the British Library and the Bodleian.

The bibliography is an important work in that it opens up a whole new area of research. Görlach even invites prospective PhD students to tackle any one of the twenty-one research questions listed in the introduction (pp. 8–10). In its present form, the book represents work in progress, for the completion of which more time and money deserves to be made available. In any case, Görlach must be given full credit for having undertaken a significant beginning of it. Given the new media of publication now at our disposal, the publisher might well consider bringing out an updated version of the bibliography – to contribute to which the reader is invited (p. 13) – on CD-Rom or to make it available on-line on the Internet. To do so would make the material much more accessible, so that searching for existing correspondences between the grammars, such as all those items which apparently draw on the popularity of Murray’s grammar, would become a lot easier.

Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, University of Leiden (contact the reviewer).

Reaction from Phyllis Williams on the above speculation as to whether the two John Binns listed in Alston are one and the same person:

• Ackworth School
• Quaker Binns
• Political Binns."

Contact Phyllis Williams.