On the Study of Words
by Richard Chenevix Trench 1807–1886
The book, and the century it came out of.
Where words come from and what they carry: Trench takes ordinary English — knave, villain, pagan, sincere — and shows the history fossilised inside each one, and what it says about the people who made it. In 1857 he read a paper on the deficiencies of English dictionaries that set in motion the project which became the Oxford English Dictionary; he was Archbishop of Dublin, and these lectures are why the OED exists. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Constable, Martin and Cox among them.
Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future, conquests’…
On the Study of Words, by Richard Chenevix Trench, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Essays & Criticism
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 256 pages
- Reading time
- about 5 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501156456
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
On the Study of Words, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Essays & Criticism shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501156456, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of On the Study of Words?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Richard Chenevix Trench's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 256 pages, which is roughly about 5 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
