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I recently asked a question regarding archaic English grammar and one of the comments recommended that I make a resource request here on the Meta.

I'm looking for any books or websites that comprehensively explain the grammar of English spoken around the 1700 or 1800s.

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    Related: What good reference works on English are available?.
    – JEL
    Nov 11, 2020 at 5:37
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    I've not the time available to flesh this into a real answer, but a search at Hathi Trust for "english grammar" between 1700 and 1900 would be productive. Even though there are more than a 1000 results, scanning the titles should give you clues; if that's still too much, additional filters for subject, period, etc. can be applied via the left sidebar links.
    – JEL
    Nov 11, 2020 at 7:43
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    See: sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/eighteenth-century-grammars
    – user 66974
    Nov 11, 2020 at 14:18
  • Are there any particular authors you're trying to study and or emulate? For that time period, it's really not that long ago. The grammar is pretty much the same as nowadays just more formal or stuffy -style-. You might see more subjunctives and embedded relative clauses and 'whom' and a stray actually archaic 'thou'. Even Shakespeare is modern English, just with a lot of (actually) archaic vocabulary and he takes a lot of poetic license. A start on grammar might be found at Wikipedia
    – Mitch
    Nov 11, 2020 at 19:55
  • Are you looking for works that actually explain the grammar that folks were using in those centuries, or works that explain what folks in those centuries thought their grammar was? Those are vastly different concepts, and they each have their own literature.
    – John Lawler
    Nov 16, 2020 at 22:42
  • There’s also a Wikipedia article on English grammars en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English_grammars.
    – Xanne
    Nov 18, 2020 at 7:43

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