A Study of English Word Values (1932, first edition)
Lawrence Faucett and Itsu Maki's word frequency study, "statistically determined from the latest word-counts"
Author
Publisher
Printing Details
First edition, first printing. Hardback in dustwrapper. Top edge gilt. 18 × 11.5cm. 17pp, 251pp, 21pp, 12pp [1]. Errata pasted in to rear pastedown. Text in English and repeated in Japanese at the rear of the book.
Subtitled to the wrapper "Providing teachers and students with a means of distinguishing indispensable, essential, and useful words from special words", this is a seminal work in the Vocabulary Control Movement of the early 20th century. Faucett and Maki combined Edward Thorndike’s and Ernest Horn’s massive frequency counts into a unified statistical plan. A detailed statistical breakdown is outlined in the introduction. This book served as the primary text and baseline for the landmark 1934 Carnegie Corporation conference on international vocabulary selection, directly inspiring Michael West’s definitive General Service List (GSL), a 1953 publication which listed the 2000 most frequently used words.
Condition
The book itself is in very good condition, with a little spotted foxing to the pages' fore-edge. The dustwrapper has some foxing and some small areas of loss to the corners and spine ends but remains good.
Books are currently zero-rated for duty (as of May 2026), so the price shown is the price you pay.
Price
£50.00
