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“The ignorance or negligence which introduced wrong spelling, &, in some cases, made words which are nonsense, & then permitted these words to occupy a place in our best books, even in the Bible, for centuries; appeared to me an abuse of the language not to be tolerated….

I was educated in all the errors & blunders of the English books; & it has given me more trouble to unlearn & correct them, than to have learned the language correctly at first. And I am still learning, as much as I was forty years ago. Some errors were admitted into the first edition of my books, because I had not discovered them…

This fascinating letter to the editors of a newspaper or journal explains Webster’s rationale for updates to his monumental An American Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1828. Webster’s dictionary made an immediate impact on American culture and national identity, yet numerous critics were quick to point out inconsistencies and make much of a handful of seemingly nonsensical words.

NOAH WEBSTER. Autograph Letter Signed, to Editors, ca. 1835-1843, n.p. 2 pp., 7½ x 9? in.

Inventory #27523       Price: $6,500

Complete Transcript

Messrs Editors.
            Soon after I published my large dictionary, several years ago, one of our most learned philologists wrote to me, that when he first saw my spelling of certain words, he had objections to the alterations; but after reading my reasons, his objections were removed.

            The alterations I have made are comparatively few, & my reasons for these are stated in the American Dictionary. As this work is in few hands, many persons see these alterations, without knowing the reasons. To prevent the prevalence of erroneous opinion on this subject, I have sent to the newspaper press, my reasons for certain alterations of spelling, for the benefit of those who have not, & are not able to procure, my larger dictionary. To prevent any objection to the republication of my remarks, in other papers, the remarks were separated into short articles, that they might be inserted without excluding more important matter. But my wishes have not been realized.

            The attentive reader of my books & my observations will see that the few alterations made have not been capriciously made; but that all are founded on reasons which to me appeared substantial. The ignorance or negligence which introduced wrong spelling, &, in some cases, made words which are nonsense, & then permitted these words to occupy a place in our best books, even in the Bible, for centuries; appeared to me an abuse of the language not to be tolerated.

            I was educated in all the errors & blunders of the English books; & it has given me more trouble to unlearn & correct them, than to have learned the language correctly at first. And I am still learning, as much as I was forty years ago. Some errors were admitted into the first edition of my books, because I had not discovered them. These are now corrected. <2>

            My reasons for what I have done are before the public; I have written enough & more than enough. If what I have written is not sufficient to justify me, the addition of observations would be of no use.

            My scheme of forming a series of books, from a spelling book to an etymological & defining dictionary, is now finished. But the incessant attempts to supplant my books, & defeat my object, without other reasons, would prevent me from continuing my labors. English philology is in a miserable condition, both in England & the United States; old errors are continually republished; & without more accurate scholarship in the higher seminaries of learning in both countries; & without more accurate scholars for the makers of books for schools, & for superintendents of education, all efforts of mine to reform & improve the language will be useless.

                                                                        N Webster.

PS. The pamphlet which I have sent to you, will supersede further observations.[1]

Historical Background
After publishing a speller, a grammar book, and a reader in the 1780s and editing a Federalist newspaper in the 1790s, Noah Webster turned his attention to dictionaries, publishing his first in 1806. The following year, he began work on an expanded and fully comprehensive dictionary, which took nearly two decades to complete. He completed work on it in 1825 and published his An American Dictionary of the English Language in two volumes in 1828 at the age of seventy. He sold only 2,500 copies, and almost immediately began work on an abridged version that appeared in 1830, and a full second edition, which was published in two volumes in 1841.

Frustrated by the attacks on his work, Webster spent much time defending it against critics and competitors, as this letter makes clear. In August 1829, he wrote a letter from his home in New Haven, Connecticut, to the local newspaper, which was reprinted in other newspapers. “I have gone no farther in making alterations,” Webster insisted, “than to correct a few words, whose etymology has been mistaken, and whose orthography is palpably wrong; and also to reduce to uniformity, the orthography of words of the same analogy or mode of formation.” To his critics, Webster declared: “These improvements have not for their object merely nor principally the gaining of a little money. My labors can never be remunerated, nor my expenses reimbursed. But the great object is the permanent improvement of the language, and of course the literature of this country.” He was also pleased to note that “several editors of newspapers and of popular periodicals have determined to make my dictionary their standard of orthography, in all the principal classes of words which I have reformed, and these improvements are already begun. Time will be necessary to effect an entire uniformity.”[2]

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 publicationThe 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, completing it in January 1825 in Cambridge, England, while spending a year abroad. 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.