Looking for an online catalog/list of Greek learning books

[Democritus]

I was at a used bookstore the other day, and I saw a very nice (older, certainly out of print) book for learners of Greek. This book's strategy was to teach Greek by making the student start reading right away. There weren't many pages devoted to explanations of grammar, just reading passages. The first half of the book contained short readings (just one or a few paragraphs) and some brief exercises, and the second half was full of grammatical tables.

Silly me, I didn't buy this nice book the first time I saw it.... the next time I returned to the shop, someone else had snatched it up.

I'm trying to hunt for it, but unfortunately I don't know the title, or author, or publisher, or even the date of publication. Probably sometime between 1940 and 1970, but I'm not certain. The cover of this book was hardback, probably a nice black or dark blue design. No jacket, just a nice dark-colored cover. There may have been some yellow or white highlighting on the cover.

I've been trying to search on Abebooks and similar sites, but the search tools don't allow me to narrow the search in the right ways. What I would really like to do is browse through a long list of books on this specific topic and see what I can find.

So, I'm wondering if any Classicist has collected a long list of Greek-language-instruction books that have been published over the years? I don't know, but I suspect the number of books like this is not huge. Hundreds, perhaps, but not thousands.

Thanks! I don't expect to ever locate this book again, since I have so little information to go on, but I figure, I might as well ask. Maybe I will get lucky.

[Jeff Tirey]

this is quite a puzzle! can you guess how many pages? Off the top of my head I can't think of anything were there is both reading passages in Greek and tables in the back. It sounds like a composition book but only in reverse.

was this a cloth hardback? I can't think of any publishers other than Rivingtons who used a navy blue board, but that wouldn't fit the time frame because Rivingtons come much earlier at about 1885-1915

here is where you should begin your search, but it'll have more English textbooks than American.

http://classicsteacher.co.uk/index.htm

jeff

[Geoff]

I Have a book that roughly matches your description. "Greek Through Reading" by Nairn and Nairn. The cover on mine is orange with black swirls.

Good luck!

[Democritus]

I Have a book that roughly matches your description. "Greek Through Reading" by Nairn and Nairn. The cover on mine is orange with black swirls.

Yes, this was the book. Thanks for the reference. I managed to buy it via abebooks.

[Geoff]

Glad to be of some service. Hope it helped.