AMERICANA TO 1820

Backus’sOwn Abridgment of Backus — First Edition

•  First edition: Backus’s own condensed version of his three-volume history (which originally appeared in 1777, 1784, and 1796), updating the chronology to the year of this publication and adding some incidents passed over by the larger work. A Separatist minister, delegate to the First Continental Congress, and founding father of the college that became Brown University, Isaac Backus here describes the origins of the Baptist movement in the United States, as well as the movement’s “latter day glory.”

•  Howes B14; Sabin 2626; Shaw & Shoemaker 5751. Contemporary speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; leather with small spots of discoloration, joints cracked, spine with call number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplates and stamped numeral, title-page with early inked ownership inscription in upper portion and with institutional pressure-stamp, preface with stamped numeral in lower margin, first text page with pressure-stamp, all edges rubber-stamped. Pages slightly age-toned, with some light spotting.

This Philadelphia Bank's Articles of Association . . .

•  Sole edition and very rare. The bank was capitalized with $1,000,000, aimed at making loans to merchants and farmers, and drew its original 16 directors from the powers that were in Philadelphia at that time, both Christian and Jewish.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 4846. Sewn as issued. Waterstaining to lower margin of most pages; mildew damage to same areas.

. . . and Its Incorporation (Banking).  Anon.  Philadelphia [National] Bank. Pennsylvania. Laws, statutes, etc. An act to incorporate the Philadelphia Bank. Philadelphia: Pr. by W. W. Woodward, 1804. 8vo. 21, [1 (blank)] pp.
$800.00

•  The legislature enables the bank to come into existence and prohibits conflicts of interest by barring sitting governors and legislators from serving on the Bank's board of directors. This act of incorporation seems to be as rare as the Bank's Articles.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 7007. Original light boards covered with marbled paper. Back cover and two leaves gnawed by a rodent, with loss of paper.

A Marblehead Puritan Printed in London
forBoston Distribution

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•  Barnard (1681–1770) was a Puritan pastor of a church in Marblehead, Mass., and famous for his passion and ability as a preacher. This work is uncommon in that it was printed in London for two Boston booksellers.

•  Sabin 3471; ESTC T65667; not in Alden & Landis.   Contemporary sheep, modestly tooled in blind; leather dry and abraded. Ex-library with call number on spine, shelf marks in pencil, bookplate on front pastedown, and rubber-stamp on title-page. (20159)

Anacharsis in English — Anything But Dry!

•  Translated from the French by William Beaumont for the original English printing. Really a textbook on the daily life and culture of ancient Greece, primarily centered around Athens, this lengthy work is "so written, that the reader may frequently be induced to imagine he is perusing a work of mere amusement, invention, and fancy" (p. iii). Footnotes citing a multitude of classical sources back up Barthelemy's imagined journey, which is illustrated with an attractive engraved map by du Bocage.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 5809. Recently rebound in period-style tan cloth over light blue paper sides, spines with paper labels. Contemporary ownership inscription to front fly-leaf in each volume. Map with light offsetting and short tear just starting along one fold. First 20 leaves of vol. II waterstained and last 10 foxed; scattered incidences of spotting in all volumes, pages generally clean. Nice-looking set, and a relatively painless method of absorbing ancient history.

“Come, Read & Learn” — With the Fold-Over Flap Present

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•  Dr. R explains the unusual way in which the pages of this publication were put together: There are “[f]our leaves, the first and last pasted down to the covers, the 2 inner ones pasted together making 4 pages in all.” These four pages contain 24 letters of the alphabet, each with a “cry” illustrating it, 6 compartments to a page. Dr. R supposed the cries to be those of Newcastle or York, but Welch dissents and says they are London cries. In addition to the interior four pages, the covers are integral to the educational purpose of the publication: The front cover has a heading “Read, and be wise” and below is the alphabet in majuscules, then a center cut of sheep below a tree with children in the distance, and the numerals one to zero below the cut. Dr. R attributes this cut to A. Anderson. The rear cover has the same heading, then the alphabet in minuscules, a cut of horses and handlers and a building with the alphabet in italic minuscules below, and then the numerals again.

The flap with “Come, read and learn” on the outside and the title and publication data on the inside is present and integral.  It is not uncommon for this fragile flap to have been lost.

•  Rosenbach, Children, 428; Welch 1363; Shaw & Shoemaker 14251 and 21546.   Publisher's olive printed paper–covered wrappers; minimal chipping at corners and covers creased from an old “bump.” A very nice copy of this fragile item.  (24519)

The Latest inSurgical Techniques

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•  First American edition of this important medical work, originally published in 1795. Much attention is dedicated herein to the question of amputation versus other types of treatments, with the practices of Prussian, French, and English surgeons compared.

Bell, brother of neurologist Sir Charles Bell, was a Scottish anatomist and surgeon in addition to being a skilled artist who often illustrated his own work. This treatise featurestwo copper-engraved plates done by Amos Doolittle after drawings by Bell, and two small, unattributed woodcuts.

Provenance:  Large early signature of Wm. Daugherty to fly-leaf.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 12101; Austin 192.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, board edges tooled in blind; joints and edges lightly rubbed, spine label crackled. Front fly-leaf with early inked ownership inscription. Light foxing and offsetting. A good, sound, pleasant copy.  (22549)

Written While Living in Rhode Island & Drawing Its Landscape

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•  First edition; a second was published the same year. Includes “An essay towards a new theory of vision. First published in the year MDCCIX,” with a separate title-page, in vol. II, on pp. [211]–358.

Presented here is Berkeley's defense of revealed religion: It ranks as a major example of English literature and of American literature too, for he wrote it while living in America waiting for money for his projected university in Bermuda. “Alciphron, a set of dialogues located notionally in England, but drawing much of the landscape description from Rhode Island,” sold well and aroused controversy after his return to Britain. The New Theory of Vision is “a work of lasting importance in the psychology of perception[; it] was transitional between Berkeley's already informed interests in mathematics and natural philosophy and a growing independence of mind in metaphysics and epistemology” (both quotations from DNB on-line).

Each volume's main title-page bears an emblematic engraved vignette with a Biblical and a classical motto beneath; the text is embellished with a few nicely engraved initials, headers, and tailpieces; and of course “Vision” offers its several diagrams.

Provenance: “A. Thorpe – York” inscribed on title-pages.

•  ESTC T86056; NCBEL, II, 1852. Not in European Americana.   Contemporary sheep, spines with raised bands and gilt-stamped red leather labels; covers framed and paneled in blind-stamped triple fillets with blind-stamped corner fleurons; all edges red. Leather rubbed with some loss to corners, edges, turn-ins; vol. I with pulls at both spine extremities, small gouge to front cover, front joint opening with cover almost off. Old institutional bookplates and rubber-stamp to pastedowns, title-pages, and lower edges of closed volumes; ink ownership signature to title-pages as above and a few additional ink and pencil marks; some very scattered spots or staining with pages generally clean. (21366)

TO Part III . . .

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