A general dictionary of the English language. One main object of which, is, to establish a plain and permanent standard of pronunciation. To which is prefixed a rhetorical grammar

London: printed for J. Dodsley [and 2 others], 1780. First edition, 4to, 2 volumes, π² [A]-[D]² a-q² B-6F²; [A]-[6D]² [6E]⁴; complete with the half-titles, the list of subscribers (among whom are James Boswell and David Garrick) and the list of works published by Sheridan following the final leaf of text; worm track in bottom margins of last dozen leaves in volume II, occasionally touching a letter or two; else a very good, sound copy in full contemporary reversed paneled calf, red and black morocco labels on spines. With the very interesting ticket for James Cary, bookbinder, letter-press printer, bookseller and stationer in Shepton-Mallet on the front pastedown in volume I. Sheridan, the elocutionist, "is the first lexicographer who consistently respelled the entry words to indicate pronunciation ... Though the idea of respelling was not new -- Johnson and earlier lexicographers had sometimes done it -- it had been used only exceptionally and in systems that were relatively crude. Sheridan pronounced every word, even simple ones, indicated stress as well as sounds in his respellings, and gave greater attention to the hitherto neglected consonants than ever before ... The latter part of the eighteenth century saw the publication of a number of dictionaries devoted principally to pronunciation... But it was not until the publication of Sheridan's A General Dictionary of the English Language that a major advance was made..." (Landeau, Dictionaries, pp. 56-57). Alston V, 312; Kennedy 6286; Vancil, p. 220.