A Complete and Universal English Dictionary ([1841])

Also part-encyclopedias and part-gazetteers, Barclay's dictionaries, which were published in several editions by different publishers between 1782 and about 1850, also had (certainly in the copy in this lot) sections on linguistics, ancient and modern history, and Latin and French quotations and phrases.

Publication of this edition will have been between late-1841 - the date of the Canterbury Cathedral engraving (opposite p 134) - and early-1842 (June 1842 was the month Robert Lucas signed his name at the front of the book).

Henry Dewhurst, the reviser, was also the author of a book on whales and one on the oceanic inhabitants of the arctic regions.

Our copy of Dewhurst's revision of Barclay's Dictionary is in remarkably good condition and is a pleasure to consult and read. The binding is sound, the pages open flat and the paper is thick enough to handle easily.

The volume is half-bound in heavy tan calf and matching paper boards. The boards are extensively rubbed, but the leather remains sound, with no wear to the corners. The spine has been reinforced with four tan calf bands and there is other reinforcement between the spine and the covers and at the endpapers, which are thick turquoise marbled paper and which remain in very good condition.

The first three leaves of the xxxiii + 960 pp of text are lightly foxed, the title-page, which is an inserted engraving on thicker paper, and the last three leaves are extensively foxed and stained, as are all the 20 inserted engraved plates (mainly maps of English counties). The remaining text pages are unfoxed, bright and unmarked. All three page edges were originally gilt, but only the top edge remains bright, with the other edges now dull brown.

An unusual practice is that the entries beginning with a "U" or a "V" are grouped together.

Our copy of Barclay's is handsome and eminently collectable, needing no further restoration.

It is interesting to note that some copies of other editions and bindings - we can find no information about other copies of our specific edition - carry price-tags of more than $1000."