Grammatica-enciclopedia Italiana-Inglese per gli Italiani degli Stati Uniti [Italian-English Grammar-Encyclopedia for the Italians of the United States]. New York: Nicoletti Bros. Press, 1912.

This important work of Pecorini (b. Italy, 1881; d. Argentina, 1957) was first published by the Nicoletti Brothers in 1911 “for the Italians in the United States,” and reprinted in this edition - dated 1912 - by that same important early publishing house. Notice the price of $1.25. (Durante provides a bio of Pecorini; there is nothing in either Flamma or Schiavo about him.)

The cover misspells the title as "Grammatica-Enclopedia," rather than "Enciclopedia." Notice too that the extended title - "per imparare l'Inglese senza maestro" [for learning English without a teacher] - is not repeated on the title page, much less the extended description (from the cover only) of "il più completo libro del genere che sia mai stato pubblicato in America, continene circa il doppio della materia delle migliori gramatiche esistenti sul mercato, 452 pagine con circa 110 illust[razioni]" [the most complete book of its type that has ever been published in America, containing about double of the material of the best grammars existing on the market, 452 pages with about 110 illustrations].

Pecorini (or his publisher) was perhaps making an invidious comparison with other earlier U.S.-developed grammars, such as Zanolini's, q.v., or De Gaudenzi's, q.v., although those grammars both weighed in at more than 300 pages (and so Pecorini's grammar hardly had "twice" the material; both initially published in the 1890s. He may have been making a comparison to Bassetti's far shorter and less ambitious "manuale" for teaching English to Italian immigrants. Or he may have also been comparing his work with that of the imported grammars designed to teach English to Italians but not to immigrant Italians.

This work later also went through new editions, reflecting its evident success, beginning with a second edition in 1919 and continuing with 1949 and 1952 editions, when it was reissued by both the author’s own Libreria Nuova Italia (New Italy Booksellers) and also in New York by Forzano & Fleri (under the title of Nuovissima grammatica enciclopedia italiana-inglese).

In New York, at the beginning of the 20th century, Pecorini (like many of the other writers whose works are on exhibition here) managed an Italian newspaper in America, in his case, Il Cittadino (The Citizen) for some years.

In preparing his Grammatica, as he noted in the preface of this work, in Italian, he “had in mind specially the middle class of Italian workers in the United States,” those who “while not having followed, in Italy, studies beyond elementary school, nevertheless had a knowledge of the Italian language that makes them able to appreciate a good and practical grammar.”

His goal was to offer a method of learning English that was different from that used in existing works produced either imported from Italy since the 1870s, or produced earlier in the 19th century, works geared more to advanced students in a classroom setting.

In collecting several of the editions of this work - and even two copies of the same 1911 copyrighted work printed in 1912 - I have followed the bibliographical principle of one of the great bibliographers of the 20th and 21st centuries, T. Thomas Tanselle, who argues that libraries should maintain multiple copies of works, even of the same edition, for what different stories the different copies can tell the bibliographer.

Indeed, if you look at the description of the second one of my two 1911-1912 copies, you can see just such a reason for collecting two seemingly identical copies.