Graecae Grammaticae Rudimenta: In Usum Scholarum

Charles Wordsworth’s Graecae Grammaticae Rudimenta in Usum Scholarum was, for decades, the foundational Greek grammar in England. Wordsworth, a nephew of the poet, a master at Winchester College and later bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dublane, used his expertise in teaching the classical languages to produce a clear, practical introduction to Greek, beginning with the alphabet and progressing through the declension of nouns and adjectives, the conjugations of verbs, and the fundamentals of syntax. In striving not to replace the standard Eton Grammar but rather to refine and revise it, Wordsworth succeeded in composing a book that one fellow master called ‘most distinct, easy of conception for the boys, and lucidly arranged’. This ninth edition (1853) includes the author’s full emendations to the text.