A Dictionary of the Hindostan Language:

The second Hindustani English dictionary, the first to contain a dictionary of Hindustani words alongside a dictionary of English words translated into Hindustani, and the first to be authorised by the East India Company.

John Fergusson refers to two prior 'Vocabularies of the Hindostan language' published before his own. He must mean both by George Hadley (d. 1798), the pirated edition of 1771 and his later revised and official Grammatical Remarks on the Practical and Vulgar Dialect of the Indostan Language of 1772. Both are greatly inferior to Fergusson's, both in scope and scale, as Hadley's reaches only 133 pages while Fergusson's is over 290 pages with the dictionary portions being double columned, making it approximately quadruple the size. Fergusson's grammar preceding his dictionary is also more extensive.

This was printed before the use of Sanscrit, Urdu, or Nastaliq type, and yet the price of printing in London still required Fergusson to charge two guineas for a copy. The exorbitant sum meant that he shipped almost the entire lot, according to contemporary historian Robert Orme (1728-1801), to India in order to sell to wealthy East India Company men.

Scarce, with the last copy appearing at auction in 1975, and 7 copies in UK institutions (BL, Chethams, Wellcome, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Oxford and SOAS).

First edition; 4to (26 x 22 cm); contemporary full calf, spine in six compartments with gilt red morocco lettering piece, all edges speckled red, worn, lower hinge cracked but firm, a little worming to first few leaves not affecting text, contemporary ownership inscription to title and notes to front pastedown, a very good untouched copy; [iv], viii, 58, [2], [232] pp.