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This image with a detail from the newly discovered picture of Robert Lowth shows part of the spine of the book in the portrait: The spine, however, also reads “DONVM AVTORIS”, a gift from the author. I suppose it could … Continue reading →

This month, a special issue of Historiographia Linguistica has come out called Robert Lowth (1710-1787): The making of his grammar and its influence (HL XXXIX/1, 2012).  The issue, which was guest-edited by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, has been dedicated to the … Continue reading →

In an earlier post I put the question who Harriet Knatchbull was, the little girl, or so it seemed to me, who had been given a copy by Lowth himself of his grammar. This grammar is now in Chawton House … Continue reading →

The database Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) includes 34 editions and reprints of Lowth’s grammar. You can find these by means of an Advanced Search string that includes Lowth = author AND grammar = title NOT Ash = author. If … Continue reading →

This poem shows that Lowth’s grammar inspired its readers to more things that acquiring “the Art of rightly expressing our thoughts by Words” (Lowth 1762:1). The poem is part of a collection of poems called The Wiccamical Chaplet (1804), edited … Continue reading →