A Brief Summary of Webster's "Spelling Book" History by David M. Pearson There was not just one Speller but many editions & hundreds of reprints. Following are the more important editions and some highlights of each. 1783: Grammatical Institute of the English Language, Part I. This was the first of Webster’s “Spellers.” Again note it was intended to teach beginning reading in part through the use of spelling. The 3 and eventually 4 parts of his institute of books were his Speller, Reader, Grammar, and 1806 Dictionary, the latter replaced by his masterpiece 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. 1787: The American Spelling Book. Webster revised and reissued his book under a new title. This and its various later editions and titles were the undisputed best sellers of introductory reading textbooks in the U.S. for more than a century, throughout the 1800s. There was also an 1803 edition. 1804: The American Spelling Book, Revised Edition. He had to put out a new edition every few years because copyrights expired in only 14 years at that time -- a matter Webster saw corrected by new legislation before 1829. 1816: Webster sold all rights to his Speller to Hudson & Co of Hartford, Conn, with one catch: that his son William would be apprenticed to the firm and become a partner in it. Son William never did become a partner. A major reason Noah sold it at this point was that, starting actually in 1800, he had begun his long, arduous and engrossing work on his American Dictionary which involved a great deal of his personal money and time, including many trips abroad to track down the origins of our words we now see in dictionary derivations (a trend he started), and his learning at least a dozen (some say more than 16) foreign languages. There was also an 1818 version of this. 1824: The American Spelling Book, this edition and later ones were popularly called the Little Blue Back Speller (or sometimes Blue-backed Speller) due to its blue-colored cloth cover. Some today say this was his best Speller edition. It still contained the 1803 Preface by Webster, plus his 1818 notes following the end of that preface, regarding the book’s sales, the use of diacritical marks, and the great value of teaching syllables in beginning reading: “In nine-tenths of the words in our language, a correct pronunciation is better taught by a natural division of the syllables, and a direction for placing the accent, than by a minute and endless repetition of [individual] characters.” Unfortunately, sales of this edition began to lag because its new owner, Hudson, didn’t keep up the promotion of the book like Noah had. 1828: Webster published his magnum opus, An American Dictionary of the English Language. It’s still a very useful reference to this day