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Lot 399
Sale 654 - Fine Books and Manuscripts
May 1, 2019
9:59AM CT
Live / Chicago
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$6,000 -
8,000
Lot Description
[WRIGHT BROTHERS]. WRIGHT, Wilbur (1867-1912). Typed letter signed ("Wright Brothers W.W."), to Funk & Wagnalls Company. Dayton, OH, 15 December 1910.
1 page, 4to, on Wright Brothers letterhead. Discussing contributions to Funk & Wagnalls dictionary regarding aeronautical definitions.
"We should apologize for our delay in answering your letter of September 1st…but as we had already written you that we could no longer assist in your work on account of apparently irreconcilable differences in ideals of what a dictionary should be, we laid the letter aside till a more convenient time…
"For reasons hitherto stated we cannot consent to have our names used as sponsors for the aeronautical section of the dictionary. We strongly disapprove of the policy of encumbering the dictionary with expressions whose real meaning is more clearly and correctly set forth by the words themselves than by the attempted definitions, and with a multitude of new words coined by persons having no standing in the art, and which have not been accepted by other writers or students. Therefore we must again decline any formal association with your work.
"Nevertheless, if you should consider it practicable and desirable, when the work on this department has been completed, to send us the full list at one time, we will merely as a duty to the public and without any remuneration of any kind, take the trouble to go through the list and indicate the parts which we think should be dropped entirely, and mark any glaring errors in the remaining terms."
