A FRENCH GRAMMAR. To which is prefixed, an Analysis relating to that subject. The second edition.

LABUTTE, René.

Published by Cambridge: printed by J. Archdeacon printer to the University; for W.H. Lunn Cambridge; and sold by Messrs. Rivington. and J. Deighton. London, 1790

About this Item

8vo, pp. [iv], xii, 112; slightly foxed in a few places, but otherwise a very good copy in contemporary sheep, spine with red morocco label. Early ownership inscription of Mary Smith, 1799, on endpaper. 'Second edition', but actually a reissue of the first edition of 1784, also published by Archdeacon, but without the list of subscribers which prefixed the original. Labutte (also spelt La Butte) had been teaching French in Cambridge since the early 1740s: he was already established there in 1746 when James Fauchon arrived to offer the same service (and they seem soon to have quarrelled about who taught the better French). Originally a printer in his native Angers, Labutte came first to London, where he worked for the Bowyer press; then he went to Cambridge with the enterprising London printer Robert Walker (who founded a newspaper there), and married a wealthy widow. He died in Cambridge the year that this book was published. The book is dedicated to the Duke of Grafton, who had been Chancellor of the University since 1768. In either issue, this book is uncommon: of those outside England, ESTC locates only the Columbia and Huntington copies of the first, and none of this second issue. Alston XII 539. See McKitterick, History of Cambridge University Press, II p. 173.

Seller Inventory # 22364

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A FRENCH GRAMMAR. To which is prefixed, an Analysis relating to that subject. The second edition.
• Publisher: Cambridge: printed by J. Archdeacon printer to the University; for W.H. Lunn Cambridge; and sold by Messrs. Rivington. and J. Deighton. London
• Publication Date: 1790
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Seller catalogs:
  • Grammar