Pantographia. Containing Accurate Copies of all the Known Alphabets in the World; Together with an English Explanation of the Peculiar Force or Power of Each Letter: To which are Added, Specimens of all Well-Authenticated Oral Languages; Forming A Comprehensive Digest of Phonology. [With the very rare original prospectus, issued in August, 1798, bound at back.]

With the Very Rare Prospectus Bound In

Fry, Edmund (1754-1835). Pantographia; containing accurate copies of all the known alphabets in the world; together with an English explanation of the peculiar force or power of each letter . . . xxxvi, 320pp., plus 11-page prospectus (dated August 1798) and single-sheet publisher's note (January 1799) bound at the back. London: Cooper and Wilson for John and Arthur Arch . . . ; John White . . . ; John Edwards . . . ; and John Debrett, 1799. 255 x 161 mm. (uncut). 19th-century quarter morocco, cloth boards, gilt-lettered spine. Fore-edges a bit frayed, otherwise very good to fine.

First Edition. Fry, one of the most learned English typefounders of his day, spent sixteen years researching this book, which contains more than 200 specimens of ancient and modern alphabets from Abyssinian to Welsh together with phonological transcriptions in roman characters from various indigenous languages lacking written alphabets. The specimens are arranged in alphabetical order, with examples on the left-hand pages and Fry's descriptions of the alphabets on the right. Most of the type specimens—many cut expressly for this book—were cast by Fry's foundry.

"Fry published his compendium of specimens just as new archaeological approaches were beginning to reshape historical understanding. His bibliographic citations provided a snapshot of late eighteenth-century opinions about the chronological structures of the past. His notes on the subject gathered the many threads of biblical, mystical, cosmological, and historical understanding into a single collection. But alongside these varied frameworks, a clear attention to the history of the alphabet emerged.

"Fry conscientiously cited his sources, works and pages, and this made his compendium singularly useful as a reference text for alphabet historiography" (Drucker, p. 118).

This untrimmed example of Pantographia includes a copy of Fry's very rare prospectus for the work, together with his printed notice to subscribers begging their indulgence for the book's delayed issue. Drucker, Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present, pp. 118-119. Bigmore & Wyman, Bibliography of Printing, I, p. 243.