Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade is Professor of English Sociohistorical Linguistics at the University of Leiden. She publishes the internet journal Historical Sociolinguistics and Sociohistorical linguistics. Her books include An Introduction to Late Modern English (EUP 2009), The Two Versions of Malory's Morte Darthur (Boydell and Brewer 1995), and The Auxiliary Do in Eighteenth-Century English (Foris 1987)

Tieken's great virtue is paying attention to what Lowth actually wrote, both for publication and for private circulation. rather than depending on the caricatures. She has discovered a writer on language who was uncommonly sensitive to different degrees of formality ... The Bishop's Grammar is not the last word on Lowth but, if we're lucky, it will reduce the amount of foolishness attributed to "the eighteenth-century grammarians" by those who haven't bothered to read them.

• 1. Prejudice and Misconceptions ; 2. Life and Career ; 3. The Grammar: Origin and Publication History ; 4. The Grammar: Contents and Approach ; 5. Reconstructing Lowth's Social Network ; 6. Communicative Competence and the Language of the Letters ; 7. Lowth's Own Usage and the Grammar's Norm of Correctness ; 8. The Grammar and the Rise of prescriptivism ; 9. Conclusion ; References ; Index

Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade is Professor of English Sociohistorical Linguistics at the University of Leiden. She publishes the internet journal Historical Sociolinguistics and Sociohistorical linguistics. Her books include An Introduction to Late Modern English (EUP 2009), The Two Versions of Malory's Morte Darthur (Boydell and Brewer 1995), and The Auxiliary Do in Eighteenth-Century English (Foris 1987)

Tieken's great virtue is paying attention to what Lowth actually wrote, both for publication and for private circulation. rather than depending on the caricatures. She has discovered a writer on language who was uncommonly sensitive to different degrees of formality ... The Bishop's Grammar is not the last word on Lowth but, if we're lucky, it will reduce the amount of foolishness attributed to "the eighteenth-century grammarians" by those who haven't bothered to read them.

• 1. Prejudice and Misconceptions ; 2. Life and Career ; 3. The Grammar: Origin and Publication History ; 4. The Grammar: Contents and Approach ; 5. Reconstructing Lowth's Social Network ; 6. Communicative Competence and the Language of the Letters ; 7. Lowth's Own Usage and the Grammar's Norm of Correctness ; 8. The Grammar and the Rise of prescriptivism ; 9. Conclusion ; References ; Index

Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade is Professor of English Sociohistorical Linguistics at the University of Leiden. She publishes the internet journal Historical Sociolinguistics and Sociohistorical linguistics. Her books include An Introduction to Late Modern English (EUP 2009), The Two Versions of Malory's Morte Darthur (Boydell and Brewer 1995), and The Auxiliary Do in Eighteenth-Century English (Foris 1987)

Tieken's great virtue is paying attention to what Lowth actually wrote, both for publication and for private circulation. rather than depending on the caricatures. She has discovered a writer on language who was uncommonly sensitive to different degrees of formality ... The Bishop's Grammar is not the last word on Lowth but, if we're lucky, it will reduce the amount of foolishness attributed to "the eighteenth-century grammarians" by those who haven't bothered to read them.

• 1. Prejudice and Misconceptions ; 2. Life and Career ; 3. The Grammar: Origin and Publication History ; 4. The Grammar: Contents and Approach ; 5. Reconstructing Lowth's Social Network ; 6. Communicative Competence and the Language of the Letters ; 7. Lowth's Own Usage and the Grammar's Norm of Correctness ; 8. The Grammar and the Rise of prescriptivism ; 9. Conclusion ; References ; Index