Lot 241
[HOSHUR]. Letters to Squire Pedant [2nd ed.] 1856

Estimate: $120 - $180

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[S. K. HOSHOUR] Letters to Squire Pedant [2nd edition]

Offered for sale by Adam Langlands of 'Shadowrock Rare Books' - for more information please contact him via email at adamlanglands@gmail.com 

[Samuel Klinefelter HOSHOUR (1803-1883)]. Letters to Squire Pedant in the East, by Lorenzo Altisonant, an emigrant to the West. For the benefit of the inquisitive young. By a lover of the studious. Second edition, enlarged and improved. Cincinnati: Applegate & Co., 1856. 12mo (6 ¾ x 4 ¼ in; 172 x 108mm). Pp. [i-]iv-x; [11-]12-120 + 16pp. of ads. at the back. Original light green publisher’s cloth, covers blocked in blind, the flat spine elaborately blocked in gilt (extremities worn, some light soiling). Provevnace: Wm. Y. Wiley (blindstamp). An acceptable copy of a work which delights now and would surely have delighted the likes of ‘Lewis Carroll’ and ‘Mark Twain’ at the time? For the meaning of ‘dandiprat’ look no further than page 71 of the present work.

Includes of a 5pp. intro by Hoshur;  15 numbered letters, and pp.55 to 120 is a ‘Vocabulary of the unusual words contained in the Altisoant letters.’ Hoshur, who served as State Superintendent of Education for Indiana, explains in the preface that in ‘the use of the Altisonant letters, the pupil will acquire two things at once: A facility in reading long and strange words; and their definitions … [but he] wishes to impress upon the young that the style of these Letters is not to be used...’ 

A short sample of Altisonant’s style (a marriage proposal): "Debonnair and aleger Miss, Desiderating not to be ambagious in the exordial part of this epistle, and waving all polylogy, I will announce to you that I have a proclivity to assume the marital position…” (p.44).