See Amazon to search inside this bookI bought a copy of Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer (Ninth Edition) back in the late nineties and - from the look of the book's excellent condition - barely touched it. This was probably because I was studying Anglo-Saxon with the help of Bruce Mitchell & Fred Robinson's more popular primer-cum-anthology instead, A Guide to Old English.
I'm sure this is exactly as it should be - the brand-new edition of the Guide is not only large and very handsome, but also contains absolutely everything a student could ever want to know about Old English - and more!
The trouble with such a plethora of detailed information covering every aspect of the language is that the finished tome ends up being on the unwieldy side. Sweet's Primer, on the other hand, is dainty in comparison, yet it covers the basics adequately for those who either want a quick overview or who - like myself - have already studied the language and simply need a refresher.
Of course, having been first published in 1882 and last revised in 1952, Sweet's litel bok is really only suitable for those who have already spent time studying an inflected language. It was originally intended as a companion book to Henry Sweet's Reader in Anglo-Saxon, and has not always met with approval from modern linguists. It's certainly true that complete beginners would probably struggle under the barrage of sketchily explained information presented in cramped and not always brilliantly reproduced print. They would also have trouble, I suspect, following the Old English extracts, as the notes at the back only cover some nine and a bit pages (for over thirty pages of densely printed Anglo-Saxon prose). But it's perfect for me, needing something I can just slip into my anorak pocket and carry easily around town.
To accompany this, I've bought the doorstop edition of the Mitchell & Robinson Guide - pictured below - as I've signed up for an OE evening class next term which uses the Guide and is run by the University of Oxford. I do have my own battered edition of the Guide somewhere but couldn't lay my hands on it, so decided to treat myself to the newly published December 2006 seventh edition.
See Amazon to search inside this book.I'm now reminding myself of the basic noun declensions and other paradigms, using both books, plus having a quick glance through some of the extracts as a vocabulary refresher. This sounds like a bit of a drudge, but it's not as daunting as I feared. Although it's nine years now since I studied Anglo-Saxon at Oxford - omg, is it really that long? - I've been pleasantly surprised by how quickly it's all coming back to me.
Well, maybe not all. But enough to be going along with.
