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FLÜGEL, Johann Gottfried. A COMPLETE ENGLISH AND GERMAN PHRASEOLOGY; or, a copious collection of English proper expressions; comprising all the verbs and other parts of speech of the English language with the prepositions they govern; exemplified by analogous German phrases... Leipsic: Printed for J.C. Hinrichs, 1832. £275

 

FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. v, [i], 240, [2] advertisements; preface aside, printed in double columns throughout; some light browning in places but largely fresh; inkstamp of the Donaueschingen library on title-page and final page; in the original printed purple wrappers; slightly frayed, and spine sunned, with shelf-label at foot of spine.

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First edition of this compendious guide to English idiom for German speakers by the Leipzig lexicographer and linguist Johann Gottfried Flügel (1788-1855).

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Arranged alphabetically according to a system that probably made more sense to the author than the reader (so both “at home” and “he is laughed at” are to be found under A), the scope of the work ranges from very standard vocabulary, such as to fall asleep (einschlafen) to technical and medical terms (to suffer under a dropsy, an der Wassesucht leiden), threats (you are a dead man, Du bist ein Kind des Todes), and everyday turns of phrase (to be cock-a-hoop, den Großen spielen, stolzieren, prahlem sich brüsten, Hahn im Korbe sein). To reiterate the eccentricity of the order, all of these examples are to be found on the first page, under the letter A. 

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Flügel, who had been appointed Lektor in English language at the University of Leipzig in 1824, had emigrated to the United States at the age of 22, staying for nine years, and there are a number of Americanisms that are noted as such, such as ‘They don’t hitch horses at the same post’. As a guide to some of the more obscure English idioms, though, it may well be unmatched; we have certainly not encountered ‘to dine with Duke Humphrey’ (to go hungry) in any other similar work.

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Flügel is best known for his Vollständige englisch-deutsche und deutsch-englische Wörterbuch, first published in 1830 in two volumes, which saw revised editions in 1890-92 and 1906. He became a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1853. 

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OCLC records physical copies at NYPL, UC Santa Cruz, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest; LibraryHub adds Oxford and the British Library. 

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