FARMER. JOHN. S. Compiles and edits. — AMERICANISMS -- Old & New.

AMERICANISMS -- Old & New. A Dictionary of Words, Phrases and Colloquialisms Peculiar to the United States, British America, The West Indies, etc. Their derivation, meaning and application, together with numerous anecdotal, historical, explanatory and folk-lore notes. Privately Printed by Thomas Poulter & Sons. London. 1889 LIMITED EDITION, SIGNED BY FARMER. 4to. (9 x 7.4 inches). xx, 564pp. One of an undisclosed limited edition, this number 328, signed by Farmer on the title page. A very good copy in an early half black morocco leather binding. Spine with raised bands, each with decorative gilt roll. Compartments decorate with multiple ruled and decorative lines, centre tools and lettered, all in gilt. Marbled paper on boards. Top edge gilt, the others untrimmed. Marbled endpapers. A little spotting to the blank endpapers and some minor rubbing to the extremities of the binding but overall a lovely copy of this uncommon work. ---- John Stephen Farmer (1854 – 1916) was a British lexicographer, spiritualist and writer. He was most well known for his seven volume dictionary of slang, published between 1890 and 1904, that he co-compiled and edited with the one-legged English poet and critic William Ernest Henley, the inspiration for the character Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.