AMERICANA TO 1820

Not-Always-Pretty Lives Recounted — but a Pretty Book!

•  First edition of this detailed, heavily illustrated account of the joys and sorrows of growing up in early America.

•  Publisher's green cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gilt, white, and yellow; slightly cocked, with edges and extremities a bit rubbed. Occasional small pencilled marks of emphasis. In fact, quite a nice copy.  (15620)

As If ItJUST Arrived from the Print Shop . . .
Observations on “Muhhekaneew”
 EXTRAORDINARY CONDITION! 

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•  After studying the language of the Mohegan Indians of Stockbridge, the noted theologian Jonathan Edwards "the younger" (1741801) wrote this short dissertation and presented it before the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences. In it he seeks to show how widespread was the use of the language in North America, to explain "its [grammatical] genius" and some of its peculiarities, and to point out "some instances of analogy between" it and Hebrew.

•  Evans 21068; Pilling, Algonquian, 124; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Mohegan-2; Field 487 (giving date erroneously as 1787); Sabin 21971. Uncut, unopened copy retaining original sewing and preserving the often missing preliminary leaf. In a Mylar envelope. As darn near a fine copy as is obtainable.

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Analyzing Baptist Logic

•  First U.S. edition, following the London first of 1795, of an oft-printed, much-debated refutation of Abraham Booth's Paedo-baptism Examined. The author was for some years the pastor of a Baptist church before having a dramatic change of heart regarding infant baptism; Allibone says that with the present treatise, he “produced an argument of unusual power and conclusiveness. It cannot be overcome, and all attempts hitherto employed to set it aside have been feeble.” The work includes substantial sections on female communion. Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 2175; Allibone 547.   Period-style quarter tan cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Last page institutionally pressure-stamped; title-page with traces of paper adhesions to inner margin. Uncut copy; pages lightly age-toned, with a bit of soiling and light to moderate spotting.  (25830)

A Proto-Unitarian Reaction to the“AWAKENING”

•  In May of 1743 the Convention of Ministers, consisting of the "Pastors of the Churches of Christ in the provinces of Massachusetts-Bay," met to reaffirm the establishment Protestant religion and denounce the Great Awakening. On the occasion of this meeting their moderator, the Rev. Nathanael Eells, Congregationalist minister and pastor of the Second Church in Scituate, preached this sermon—which includes the significant phrase, "the one only living and true God; who is one in Essence, and three in Relations" (p. 8). This formulation in reaction to the Great Awakening characterizes the beginning of the Unitarian movement in the U.S., a movement which now seems very far indeed from anything this preacher would have foreseen. A fascinating item in the history of religious thought.

•  Evans 5173; Sabin 22006. Recent cloth-covered boards; a red leather spine label, gilt double ruled above and below with gilt lettering. 19th-century library rubber-stamps on verso of title leaf and bottom of p. 43. Light waterstain on title-page, occasional other light stains, overall remarkably clean. A nice, neat book.

GOOD “Traditional” AMERICAN History

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•  First edition of this substantial history; Puritan beginnings, Indian relations and captivities, slavery/abolition, various rebellions, trade developments, and more are all covered in lively prose and with “story”-like detail. Each volume opens with a mezzotint portrait.

•  Sabin 22260.   Publisher's brown cloth, covers framed in blind, spines with gilt-stamped title and banner motif; lightly worn and moreso at corners, spines each with relatively unobtrusive strip of cloth tape at head. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, front free endpapers excised, rubber-stamp on title-pages and a few others, no other markings.  (26890)

“The Mind Expresses Its Degree of Development through the Vocal Mechanism”

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•  Later edition, first published in 1897: Principles of vocal expression, written by the founder and first president of Emerson College. Much of Emerson's method consists of acknowledging the importance of mental state on the powers of the voice. The volume is illustrated with a frontispiece portrait and 13 anatomical plates depicting parts of the body involved in respiration and vocalization — which include, according to the author, the intestines and liver.

Binding:  Publisher's light blue cloth, front cover with decorative silver-stamped title (“Voice Culture [/] Emerson College of Oratory”) and white- and gilt-stamped vignette of a lyre-playing muse, spine with silver-stamped title. All edges gilt.

•  Binding as above, corners and spine extremities rubbed, spine slightly discolored. Frontispiece “back” with ownership inscription; back pastedown with pencilled annotations. Sewing just starting to loosen. Faint foxing to title-page opposite frontispiece, pages with shadows of pencilled marks of emphasis, otherwise clean.  (26826)

Touting “New Literary Connexions inAMERICA”

•  Collected issues of this monthly “literary journal,” which actually served as a catchall also for general news and very various items of interest—including articles on natural history and voyages or travels; wedding, bankruptcy, and death notices; remarks on pictures, or on theatrical and musical performances; and assorted free-floating anecdotes and witticisms, as well as original poetry and reviews of contemporary publications. The preface notes that “by means of some new literary connexions in america, we shall possess peculiar advantages in presenting to our Readers, accounts of the most interesting circumstances belonging to the United States”—and it was an American reader, in fact, who owned the present example.

This volume’s oversized, folding frontispiece shows the front facade of the “new East India House now building in Leadenhall Street”; there is also one in-text engraving of Lethington House in East Lothian, residence of the Maitland family.

Provenance: Front pastedown with inked ownership inscription of Joshua Gilpin, a Quaker from Philadelphia who established the first paper mill in Delaware, in 1787.

•  Disbound with front cover, front free endpaper, and frontispiece separated; back cover lost, and signature sewing exposed/going, with many leaves loose. Now contained in a simple, acid-free phase box. Edges untrimmed. Minor offsetting and a few stray marks; mostly clean.

More Varia . . .

(English Literary Periodical).

•  The contents are indexed; among the items of interest in this particular volume are a biography of Kant, an account of Jefferson’s inaugural speech, an Italian travelogue, reviews of the newest portraits, and a publication announcement for a book of “Greek, Albanian, Wallachian, Turkish, Arabian, Persian, Chinese, and Moorish national Songs and Melodies” collected by Edward Jones, the Prince of Wales’s bard.

A preface to another volume in this series notes that “by means of some new literary connexions in america, we shall possess peculiar advantages in presenting to our Readers, accounts of the most interesting circumstances belonging to the United States”—and it was an American reader, in fact, who owned the present example.

Provenance: Front pastedown with armorial bookplate (bearing the motto “Factis dictisque simplex”: Make what you say simple) of Joshua Gilpin, a Quaker from Philadelphia who established the first paper mill in Delaware, in 1787.

•  Paper-covered boards, worn and chipped, covers all but off, leather lost over spine; sewing going, with many signatures loose. Edges untrimmed, some signatures uncut; occasional offsetting or small spots, with pages mostly clean. Now housed in a simple, acid-free phase box.

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Venus — Candle-Snuffers?

(English Political Satire PLUS).

•  Satiric verse mocking fashionable English dress, accompanied by a political satire addressed to Christopher Pinchbeck which includes the lines “Haste then, and quash the hot Turmoil, / That flames in Boston’s angry Soil . . .” The first work is here in its first edition, while the second is likely an early printing.

•  Venus: ESTC T73277; Ode: ESTC T41985 (first ed.). Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with printed paper label. Second work lacking half-title and title-page. Inner margins of two leaves reinforced; last line of advertising page shaved. Title-page and last few leaves with moderate foxing; one page (not the title) stamped by a now-defunct institution, with some offsetting to opposing page.

An Early U.S. BCP AND A
“Book Studies” Teaching Tool

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•  A bibliographical oddity in the form of an early printing of the U.S. Book of Common Prayer: The title-page of the Book of Common Prayer has the imprint of W. Young and J. Ormrod and the date of 1795, but the sectional title for the Whole Book of Psalms has the imprint “Whitehall: Printed by William Young, bookseller & stationer, S. 2d-Street, Philadelphia, 1801.” That title-page is leaf Ee6, is not a cancel, and so is integral to the last signature of the Book of Common Prayer.

An examination of the paper used suggests that some gatherings of the BCP are remaindered from the 1795 printing and that the bulk of the “edition” is a close 1805 reprinting on wove paper.

•  Evans 29363; Griffiths, Book of Common Prayer, 1795/12. Not in Shaw & Shoemaker.   Recent full calf, old style, by Grace Bindings (signed “G.B.” on lower turn-in of inside back cover), with gilt tooling on covers and spine, raised bands on spine, green title-label. Title-page browned around the edges. Scattered foxing and a few stray stains.  (20606)

German-AmericanHymnal
in Typical FRAKTUR Style — with Working Clasps!

• German Lutheran hymnal for use in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. This Billmeyer edition, preceded by a frontispiece portrait of Martin Lutherwhich differs from that below (look at the windows), is printed in two columns in fraktur type; it contains the texts of the hymns only, no music. The work was first published in 1786, with a number of subsequent editions. Helmuth's Kurze Andachten, a short collection of morning, evening, and other occasional prayers, was issued with this edition of the hymnal and is usually, as here, bound in at the end. Click the images for enlargements.

•  Hymnal: Shaw & Shoemaker 31426; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2032. Kurze Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 31686; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2034.   Contemporary sheep over wooden boards withworking brass clasps, abraded; spine with raised bands and later spine labels. Leather of top spine compartment damaged with loss of leather; front joint abraded and starting. Spots of browning throughout as usual in German imprints of this period, not worse and indeed better than is often the case.  (26967)

Billmeyer-PrintedGerman Lutheran Hymnal

•  Seventh edition of this German Lutheran hymnal for use in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. This Billmeyer edition, preceded by a frontispiece portrait of Martin Luther, is printed in two columns in fraktur type; it contains the texts of the hymns only, no music. The work was first published in 1786, with a number of subsequent editions. Helmuth's Kurze Andachten, a short collection of morning, evening, and other occasional prayers, was issued with this edition of the hymnal and is usually, as here, bound in at the end.

•  Hymnal: Shaw & Shoemaker 43969 ( = 43951); Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2286. Kurze Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 44299; Arndt 2288.   Contemporary black roan in imitation of straight-grain morocco, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding with minor scuffing, spine with faintly visible scuff from now-absent shelving label. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped; back pastedown with Pennsylvania bookseller's small ticket. Expectable spots of browning throughout as usual in German imprints of this period. A few page corners dog-eared.  (24426)

TO Part IX . . .

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