An Introduction to the Irish Language. In Three Parts. [ I] Original and Comprehensive Grammar. [II] Familiar Phrases and Dialogues. [III] Extracts from Irish Books, and Manuscripts, in the Original Character. With Copious Tables of the Contractions. Dublin: P. Wogan, 1808. First Edition. Pp, [Part 1] viii, 159. [Part 2] 88, 30. Library cloth binding, text in nice bright condition.

William Nelson was born in 1774 in Rademon, Kilmore, Co. Down, where his father, the Rev. Moses Neilson, ministered to a mainly Irish speaking Presbyterian congregation. He received his classical education under John Young, who later became a professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow. In 1817, Neilson became a professor of Greek and Hebrew at the Belfast Academical Institution (a training college for Presbyterian ministers), a position he held until his death in the summer of 1821

In 1808 he published his best-known work, An Introduction to the Irish Language. At the request of the London Hibernian Society, he also wrote a 24-page book for beginners titled Céad Leabhar na Gaoidheilge (First Irish Book). Financial support for Neilson’s Introduction came from a long list of subscribers, headed by two peers, both lord lieutenants of Ireland. In his preface, Neilson mentions the historical and poetic value of the language, but stresses that his purpose is primarily practical: “It is, particularly, from the absolute necessity of understanding this language, in order to converse with the natives of a great part of Ireland, that the study of it is indispensable.”