Creator
Noah Webster
Title
Rudiments of English Grammar.
Coverage
N.Y.
Publisher
I. Riley
Date
1811
Description
Improbably enough, this schoolbook abridgment of Webster’s 1807 Philosophical Grammar contains the most direct attacks on Lindley Murray. Webster urged teachers (or perhaps children?) to compare the two grammarians’ work to “detect the plagiarisms.” Short extracts from Webster’s 1807 grammar had been “dispersed in various parts of [Murray’s] work.” Murray seems to have been unaware of these allegations until four years later, when he directed his brother John that no reply should be made: “Whoever writes a Grammar,” Murray said privately, “must in some degree make use of his predecessors’ labours.”