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Noah Webster's Sons-in-Law Collaborate & Fight Over Revisions to His Famous Dictionary: 29 Letters, 82 pp
Noah Webster's Sons-in-Law Collaborate & Fight Over Revisions to His Famous Dictionary: 29 Letters, 82 pp
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Noah Webster's Sons-in-Law Collaborate & Fight Over Revisions to His Famous Dictionary: 29 Letters, 82 pp

This collection of nearly thirty letters by Noah Webster's son-in-law and Yale professor Chauncey A. Goodrich addresses his work on an abridgment of his father-in-law's famous dictionary. Goodrich wrote most of the letters to minister and professor William Chauncey Fowler, who married another of Webster's daughters.

Goodrich oversaw the revisions of Webster's dictionary for George Merriam and Charles Merriam, and the New and Revised Edition of the Webster dictionary appeared in September 1847. A Revised and Enlarged edition appeared in 1848 with added illustrations.

This fascinating correspondence reveals the efforts of Webster's sons-in-law to revise his great dictionary, and the family friction that left two of them and their families not speaking to each other for a decade or more.

[NOAH WEBSTER.] Chauncey A. Goodrich, Autograph Letters Signed, most to his brother-in-law William Chauncey Fowler, 1839-1854. 29 letters, 82 pp. Letters bound on left side with string; minor edge wear; very good.

Excerpts
[Goodrich to Fowler, n.d., ca. 1840s:]
"I have recently learnt, that Reeds English Dictionary, has been sent to this country, ready stereotyped, and is now in the press from the plates sent out.
"Would it not be well to go on slowly and see that work which will be our great, perhaps the great competitor?
"Some important hints might possibly be obtained. Within a fortnight or three weeks, it will doubtless be from the press."

[Goodrich to Fowler, n.d., ca. 1840s:]
"Cir-cu'itous This I believe is the only pronunciation given by orthopists. My impression is that sur'ketus was as entirely peculiar to Father Webster personally, as hor'izon. I should therefore prefer to drop it."
"In the preceding remarks you will learn the reason why I have wished to glance over the proofs of the 12m. Not one of the words mentioned above, was brought up for consideration when we met. It must be that many others will occur both in spelling and pronunciation, on which we have never exchanged our views, and I see no way of doing it fully but by seeing the proofs. As I mean to take the 12m as my guide in the large work, I wish to consult now, because if any words are now neglected, it will be difficult to alter them hereafter in the 12m though you and all the family might, on reflection, wish it. My attention will be wholly directed to this point, in reading over the proofs, and I can then return them very promptly."
The 12m was the duodecimo version of the dictionary, approximately 5ʺ x 7.375ʺ in size.

[Goodrich to Fowler, n.d., ca. 1840s:]
"When we looked over the pages at Mr Ellsworths office, it was very hastily and almost entirely (at least in my mind) with reference to spelling, and not pronunciation. At my brothers office we did not take up pronunciation at all. My understanding, therefore, was that the subject of pronunciation was all to be gone over again."
"My own experience in proof reading is that a number of different eyes on the same page, is a very great advantage, especially in so minute and complex a work as this. Br William is much more exact in this matter than either of us, having enjoyed the advantages of Father['s] direction."
William W. Ellsworth (1791-1868) married Emily S. Webster, Noah Webster's oldest daughter, and served as an executor of Noah Webster's will. Ellsworth served as Congressman (1839-1834), governor of Connecticut (1838-1842), and justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court (1847-1861).
William Greenleaf Webster (1801-1869), "Brother William," was one of only two sons of Noah Webster and the only one to reach adulthood.

[Goodrich to Fowler, May 5, 1845:]
"Messrs Merriam having learned from Mr Ellsworth, that you designed, in the preface of the 12m dictionary, to allude to the plan of conforming the larger work to yours in respect to orthography and pronunciation, have felt anxious that no intimation should be given, of the revision which is now making of their work. They say any public announcement of the kind would arrest the sale of the edition now on hand; which may all be easily and very properly disposed of, during the time [? ?] which must elapse, before their work can come from the press, if the sale is not destroyed by such an announcement."
Brothers George Merriam (1803-1880) and Charles Merriam (1806-1887) purchased the rights to Webster's dictionary in 1843 from Webster's estate. Their firm eventually became Merriam-Webster, Inc.

[Goodrich to Fowler, n.d., ca. 1845:]
"When I was last at Hartford, you suggested the plan of our meeting together with Br William to review the proof impressions of the dictionary. It struck me favorably, and I supposed it would be done. When we first looked over the early letters at Hartford, we had reference only to the orthography. I did not see the proof in regular order, those at the commencement of the alphabet not having been sent, and afterwards sheets were occasionally omitted by accident. In addition to this, there has been room for gaining new knowledge, as we had advanced and considered different parts of the work in connection with each other; and hence it is true, as you justly remarked, that we are now in a better state of preparation to judge than we were at first."

[Goodrich to Fowler, November 21, 1845:]
"About five weeks ago, Messrs G. & C Merriam became quite alarmed at the indication of the public mind respecting the peculiarities of the dictionary. A very severe Report against Dr Webster, was made by a Committee at Rochester. His books were excluded from all the public schools and a similar exclusion followed from the schools of Boston. The Evangelist, which hitherto favored us, came out against innovations, and the New York Observer pointedly adverted to the fact, and praised them for it. The booksellers presented the subject to the Merriams wherever they went, and the result was that they applied to me. They requested to know, whether they might not say to booksellers confidentially, that the plan stated in my letter to the family last winter, would be carried out, viz. that the leading principles of Dr Websters orthography would be retained, but certain modes of spelling, which had been proposed by him as preferable in particular words, would be laid aside. I replied at once that this could not be said, that another course had been adopted, and that I could not depart from it after the arrangements made last winter."
"I visited the Harpers and conversed fully with them on the subject of introducing our orthograph into their publications. They said they had tried it once but found so many 'tough cases,' that they had abandoned the whole in disgust. Finally, they said that if we confined ourselves to the general principles of the Webster orthography, as stated in the preface of the School Dictionary, they would carry the spelling into all their works, and that they could soon familiarize the public eye to Dr Websters orthography."
Brothers James Harper (1795-1869) and John Harper (1797-1875) began their book publishing business in New York City in 1817. Two of their younger brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper (1801-1870) and Fletcher Harper (1806-1877), joined them in the mid-1820s, and the company changed its name to Harper & Brothers in 1833.

[Goodrich to Fowler, January 16, 1854:]
"You invite me in your note of the 19th Ult., to furnish you with my 'views of the relations between us in respect to Webster's dictionaries'; 'inasmuch,' you add, 'as they might modify mine.' I accordingly send you the following statement of facts."
"In conclusion, I need hardly say, that I have never claimed, as an individual, the right to make any alterations whatever in Dr. Webster's American Dictionary. My contract with the Merriams was based on a license for this purpose, given them by the acting Executor. You did, indeed, show me on Jan 15th 1844, a note from Mr. Ellsworth, in which you understand him to modify that license in your favor.... I have understood you to claim, that no alterations could be legally made, without the unanimous consent of all Dr. Webster's children. Even if this be so, your only ground of complaint is against the Executors, who were bound to protect your rights, and not against me, who acted from first to last under authority derived from them and the Family of Dr. Webster."
"So far as I know, you have never maintained, that my Revision was injurious to the character and usefulness of Dr. Webster's great work. The public have considered it as advantageous; and the whole question, therefore, (so far as I can perceive) is one of abstract right. In respect to that right, if violated, the responsibility (as I said before) rests not on me. I may add, that after the Revision was concluded, Mr. Ellsworth and the other members of the Family gave me written statements, exonerating me from all blame, in respect to all transactions between you and me, in which they were concerned or of which they had any knowledge.
"Under such circumstances, I certainly did feel injured and wounded, when you charged me with a violation of your rights and a breach of faith. But, if I know my own heard (and I wish, at this serious moment, to speak as under the eye of Him who searcheth the hearts of all) I never cherished unkind or resentful feelings toward you; and I have never ceased, as in earlier days, to wish and to pray for the happiness and prosperity of yourself and children."

Chauncey A. Goodrich (1790-1860) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale College in 1810. He served as a tutor at Yale from 1812-1814. He served as pastor of the Congregational church in Middletown, Connecticut, from 1810 to 1817. He married Frances Webster (1793-1869), a daughter of Noah Webster in 1816. From 1817 to 1839, Goodrich was a professor of rhetoric and oratory at Yale. He then became chair of pastoral theology at Yale, a position he held until his death. In 1829, he founded the Christian Quarterly Spectator and served as its editor until 1839. He also published textbooks on Greek and Latin. His father-in-law entrusted Goodrich with creating an abridgment of his dictionary (1828), which he did. A "Universal" edition of the abridgment appeared in 1856, and Goodrich was working on a radical revision of the dictionary at his death. It was later published under the supervision of Noah Porter in 1864.

William Chauncey Fowler (1793-1881) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale College in 1816. After teaching in Virginia for a year, he became a tutor at Yale from 1819 to 1824. He was licensed to preach and ordained a pastor of the Congregational Church in Greenfield, Massachusetts, in 1825. That same year, he married Harriet Webster (1797-1844), one of the daughters of Noah Webster. They had four children. From 1827 to 1838, he taught at Middlebury College in Vermont, and from 1838 to 1843, at Amherst College. In 1858, he moved to Durham, Connecticut, where he wrote a series of English grammar books and a variety of other books, including a History of Durham (1872).

Noah Webster (1758-1843) was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale College in 1778. He was admitted to the bar in 1781 but could find no work as a lawyer. He received a master's degree from Yale and began teaching at schools in western Connecticut and then Goshen, New York. He wrote and published a speller (1783), a grammar book (1784), and a reader (1785) for elementary schools. In 1789, he married Rebecca Greenleaf (1766-1847) in New Haven, and they had eight children. In 1793, with a loan from Alexander Hamilton, Webster moved to New York City, where he founded the Federalist newspaper American Minerva and edited it for four years. He also published the semi-weekly publication The Herald, A Gazette for the Country. He defended the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, earning the ire of the Jeffersonian Republicans. After returning to New Haven in 1798, he served in the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1800 and 1802-1807. In 1812, he moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he lived for a decade and helped to found Amherst College. Webster published his first dictionary in 1806 but began the following year to compile an expanded and comprehensive dictionary. The proceeds from the sale of his popular blue-backed speller allowed him to spend many years working on the dictionary. His famed An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) provided an intellectual foundation for American nationalism, seeing the new nation as superior to the old empires of antiquity and contemporary Europe. He published an expanded second edition in two volumes in 1840.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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