FOLLETT, Wilson | Modern American Usage: A Guide, signed by Lionel Trilling

Follett, Wilson. Barzun, Jacques, ed., in collaboration with Carlos Baker, Frederick W. Dupee, Dudley Fitts, James D. Hart, Phyllis McGinley, and Lionel Trilling. Modern American Usage: A Guide. New York: Hill & Wang, 1966.  8vo.; brown cloth stamped in blind on front cover and gilt on spine. In original beige dust jacket lettered in red and black; sunned; small tear at top of spine; light edgewear.  First edition. Signed by Lionel Trilling on the front free endpaper.  Wilson Follett (1887–1963) devoted his last years to composing a book on a subject he had studied all his life: the usage of American English. The resulting work covered issues of usage, prose composition, and style, including English grammar, syntax, and literary techniques. When he died, however, more than two-thirds of the manuscript was still in draft. Colleagues felt that it would be intolerable for the work to go unpublished, so the Columbia professor Jacques Barzun undertook the task of finishing and revising