•  Hills 259; Shaw & Shoemaker 30867. Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding rubbed, front joint cracked, back joint starting from top, spine extremities chipped. Front pastedown with private collector’s small bookplate, title-page with early inked ownership inscription in upper margin. Pages age-toned.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with contemporary inscription, “Susan Prescott's / from a friend — “ Front pastedown with small booklabel of prominent collector Michael Zinman.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 34103; O'Callaghan, 126–27; Rumball-Petrie 193; not in Darlow & Moule.   Contemporary mottled sheep, framed and panelled in blind with contrasting leather colors, spine plain without label; binding rubbed overall, but sturdy and solid. Front pastedown with label as above, front free endpaper with inked numeral and inscription above, title-page with almost entirely effaced inked inscription. Front fly-leaf with irregular, nickel-sized hole; a few leaves with their corners crimped; one leaf with a section of margin gone at fore-edgenot touching text (natural paper flaw?). Otherwise, pages mildly age-toned, some lightly to moderately spotted. A good copy.  (25187)

Provenance:  Ownership note of “Ephraim Pierce” on front free endpaper, with the “Family Records” pages offering four pages (eight columns) on the Pierce family and its connections.

•  Books Contained in the Library of the American Bible Society 15; Hills 296; O'Callaghan 128–29; Shaw & Shoemaker 36952; Wright, Early Bibles of America, 195–96.   Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-stamped Greek key bands, and gilt-stamped decorations consisting of a sickle, wheat, and an hourglass overlaid by an open book; binding rubbed overall, front cover with lower outer portion darkened, spine leather with minor cracking, spine with old inked shelving number in bottom compartment. Front pastedown with traces of now-absent bookplate, front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription, title-page and two others institutionally pressure-stamped, preliminary advertisement with inked annotation along inner margin and rubber-stamped numeral in lower margin. Back fly-leaf with affixed contemporary religious clippings. Two plates torn, each with old hand-sewn repair in dark thread. Folding map torn along folds, one tear with small area of loss, edges tattered. Pages and plates predictably foxed, some browned; a few corners dog-eared.  (26016)

Provenance

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 47213; Hills 375. Contemporary sheep double-panelled in blind, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped leather title label; binding rubbed and unevenly faded, leather cracking over spine. Foxing ranging from mild to severe; last few leaves waterstained; some dog-earing. One worm track to upper outer margin of a few leaves. New Testament lacking title. Well used but not abused; an evocative copy.

Arndt and Eck cite Bender, who says “This first American Mennonite Hymnbook isnot to be confused with one of similar title printed by Saur at Germantown in 1753, called erroneously by Seidensticker and Flory a Mennonite hymnbook.” Each portion of this item has a separate title-page, with the second section's title-page reading Sammlung altre und neuer Geistreichen Gesänge. The woodcut frontispiece depicts David playing his harp.

•  Arndt & Eck 2419; Shoemaker 2239.   Contemporary calf rebacked some time ago, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and publication labels; rubbed, original clasps now lacking. Front fly-leaves with early inked and pencilled inscriptions. Final leaf (pp. 21/22 of the 22-page appendix of brief hymn texts, not of the main portion of the work) lacking. Edge nicks, chips, and tears, some extending into text; three leaves torn in half from outer margin, without loss of text; two leaves (one index) with lower outer corner torn away, with loss of a few words; last two leaves with outer edges ragged. Some upper corners bumped. Pages browned, with waterstaining to lower inner portions of about a third of the volume.  (25569)