Originally published in 1788, this book is considered the second largest selling book of all time after the Bible. Bound in a distinctive blue cover, it earned the nickname "the blue-backed speller." Used by American children as the standard text over the span of nearly a century, this facsimile reproduction of the 1827 edition, complete with traditional blue binding, recaptures school days gone by.

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.Western literary study flows out of eighteenth-century works by Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, Denis Diderot, Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and others. Experience the birth of the modern novel, or compare the development of language using dictionaries and grammar discourses. ++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++<sourceLibrary>British Library<ESTCID>W030040<Notes>"The Library of Congress has a second copy in which the title-page has been reset in different type, though the wording is identical."--Skeel, p. 348. Parentheses substituted for square brackets in imprint transcription. Vol. 1: xii, 1], 10-348 p.; v.2<imprintFull>Hartford: Printed by Hudson & Goodwin, 1799. (Published according to act of Congress). <collation>2 v.; 8