PASSY, Paul (D L Savory, Daniel Jones)

Small 8vo. Original brown cloth, spine lettered black, viii+134pp., 7 figures. Spine ends worn, two light marks to upper board, occasional pencil underscoring. A clean tight copy. Important early work on phonetics. Translation of “Les sons du français” with a 1907 foreword by the author in English. First published in 1887, each edition was updated. Includes short list of phonetic transcription readers by Passy, Savory and Jones. Passy was one of the most important names in the field of phonetics and teacher of Daniel Jones. He founded the International Phonetic Association. Despite this, he modestly remarks that had he not been asked by Savory and Jones to publish in English, he “would have as soon as thought of carrying water to the river as of publishing a work on phonetics in the country of Ellis and Sweet”.