A very good example of this rare Burmese grammar - and pre-mutiny imprint - replete with evidence of readership.
Thomas Latter (1816-1853), born in India, officer in the 67th Bengal Native Infantry and deputy commissioner at Prome (now Pyay), Burma: “He devoted his leisure to the study of the Burmese language, and in 1845 published a Burmese grammar, which although subsequent to the primers of Adoniram Judson, the American missionary, was the first scholarly treatise on the subject” (ODNB). It is considered the first “learned” grammar of Burmese printed after the work of missionaries William Carey and Adoniram Judson. The Baptist Press was an offshoot of the Serampore Mission.
Printed between the first and second Anglo-Burmese wars, this copy is particularly desirable having been owned by several soldiers stationed in Madras in India shortly after the publication of the book. One of the owners, Captain Matthew Wood, who owned the work in Madras in October 1852, was registered in 1860 to be promoted to Major, still in Madras (The London Gazette, April 27, 1860, p. 1598). Captain Johnston (perhaps William Montague Johnston) died in 1859. The work was extensively annotated by one of these soldiers who left in the margins many linguistic remarks in pencil, notes on conjugation, pronouns, conjunctions, the subjunctive, etc. The annotator has also corrected Thomas Latter’s text in some places - for example on p. 23, in the translation “a constable” of the word looleng, he proposes instead “a young man”. A few notes in ink, from a second hand, on the same themes. Interesting testimony on the learning of Burmese by a British officer in India
While the work is reasonably well-held in institutions, just a single copy is recorded at auction - Bloomsbury 2009.
Cordier, Bibliotheca indo-sinica, 347.
Provenance : 1) Captain Matthew Wood, IX Regt, Madras, Oct. 1 [18]52 (ex-libris manuscript crossed out) ; 2) W M (William Montague ?) Johnston (†1859), Captain 18th Regt, N.I. (ex-libris manuscript crossed out) ; 3)W. Kofers ( ?) (ex-libris manuscript).
