•  Shaw & Shoemaker 16129. Contemporary mottled sheep, rubbed, joints on vols. I and II open; spines with heads and gilt-stamped leather title labels chipped, and remnants of paper shelving labels. Front pastedowns with bookplates of a now-defunct institution; front pastedowns and free endpapers with pencilled gift inscriptions. Pages foxed throughout, with some leaves notably browned.

This is the separate issue of vol. I, which was issued without the map and has “The End” at the bottom of p. 331—the two-volume issue has “End of first volume” instead.

This copy includes a pencilled marginal comment, commanding, “Read this if thou canst be an atheist — or a fool.”

•  ESTC W36508; Bristol B10094; not in Evans. Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and double gilt rules; binding with small scrapes and rubbed patches, upper board edge darkened, and leather starting to crack over the spine and joints. Without the folding map. First and last few leaves foxed.

This is an untrimmed copy in original boards, with 24 pages of advertising for Carey publications bound in at the front of the volume. The preliminary map, engraved by John Bower, has hand-colored border lines; this American edition does not call for the plates found in the English first, but does include in-text depictions of several “Ethiopic inscriptions.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 33864; NSTC 2S3118. Publisher’s quarter tan paper over light blue paper–covered sides; front cover detached and back joint cracked, binding spotted, paper cracked and split along spine, spine label now absent and replaced with hand-inked title, spine with later paper shelving label. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1829. Half-title with portion of outer margin torn away (not touching text) and laid in. Map lightly foxed, with two short tears along folds. Pages age-toned, with occasional spots of foxing.

Provenance:  Private bookplate on pastedowns and ownership stamp of John Carter Brown on first leaf of preliminaries and elsewhere. On his death to his son John Nicholas Brown (1861–1900). On his death deeded to the John Carter Brown Library. Deaccessioned 2008.

•  Howes S200; Library Company, Afro-Americana, 9182; Sabin 77989.   19th-century half brown morocco and marbled paper–covered boards, spines with gilt-stamped titles and bands; moderately rubbed. Front pastedowns each with private bookplate of John Carter Brown as above, subsequently rubber-stamped by the library bearing his name (properly deaccessioned), title-pages each with faded early inked inscription (dated 1752 and 1753), sectional title-page of vol. I and first text page of vol. II each with Brown's red signature rubber-stamp. Lacking four maps and 58 plates. Scattered faint foxing and spotting, vol. II with lower portions of front endpapers and first few leaves waterstained, pages overall generally clean. Priced to reflect plate absences — but this is a worthwhile text, complete, solidly bound, and with an interesting association.  (29149)

Binding:  Full speckled sheep, four raised bands; tooled in blind using rules and a rope-design roll. Binding attributed to Philadelphia-area binder Christopher Hoffman, who was both a Schwenckfelder minister and a binder!

Provenance:  “To Isaac Jeackle in Herreford 1791" on front fly-leaf. Hereford is in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

•  On Hoffman as a binder with an illustration of a nearly identical binding, see: Maser, Bookbinding in America, 15.   Binding as above, chip to bottom of front joint; old library rubber-stamp on front pastedown and to title-page verso, with a bit of old pencilling. Without the half-title and pp. 465–68; title-page with short closed tear along gutter. Paper with the usual age-toning/foxing, but untattered. All edges heavily sprinkled red.  (28536)

the author

Provenance:  Ownership inscription in ink of J.F. Vandevelde(?), verso of front fly-leaf; signature of Howard Osgood on title-page.

•  VD16 S 4832; Adams S-746. On the Schwenckfelders, see: NCE, XII, 1189.   19th-century speckled boards, old hand-lettered paper spine label, red speckled edges; joints repaired, boards bumped and rubbed at extremities. Text block trimmed close, with mild stains including light foxing, age-toning, and occasional waterstains; pressure-stamp of a seminary to title-page; inscriptions as above, with annotations and underlining in early ink.  (29590)

Provenance: Front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription by Mary and Rebecca Bude.

•  ESTC W19882; Evans 32810; Sabin 78287; Howes S228. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title label; worn and abraded especially over joints and edges, spine leather cracking. Some leaves dog-eared; spots of foxing to first and last few leaves, with other pages mostly clean.

•  Blue Lights: Wegelin 1132; Shaw & Shoemaker 42070. Vision: Shaw & Shoemaker 23893. Patriotic Effusions: Wegelin 1045; Shaw & Shoemaker 48509. Waterloo: Shaw & Shoemaker 35871. Letters: Shaw & Shoemaker 23699. Contemporary sheep, covers framed in single gilt roll, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped decorative bands; binding a little rubbed at joints and extremities. Front pastedown with early inked ownership inscription; free endpapers excised. Trimmed closely, in occasional instances just touching outermost letters. Some age-toning and spotting; one leaf with ink stain not obscuring text, two leaves with tears from outer margins extending into text. Intermittent pencilled underlining and small marks. Pp. 49–56 of Letters bound in at end.

First edition, with two others appearing shortly thereafter.

•  Adams, American Controversy, 74-73a. Sabin 80040. Recent boards with marbled paper covering. Paper spine label. Title-page with small 19th-century library stamp and call number in neat ink; page backed. A very nice copy.

All images were drawn and etched by the author himself.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked inscription of Fairman R. Furness, of the prominent Furness-Bullitt family. Title-page with earlier signature of “A.G. Findlay.”

•  Hill, Collection of Pacific Voyages, 1563; Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration, II, S42; Sabin 80483; NSTC 2S19683.   Contemporary half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding rubbed and abraded overall, spine head and label chipped. Front pastedown with small booklplate bearing no name; ownership inscriptions as above. Lower outer corner of title-page torn away; list of Briton officers with small tear repaired some time ago, tissue now lifting from repair. Pages and plates browned at edges with moderate spotting, staining, and dust-soiling; four pages with ink blurred from press. A fascinating book, an interesting copy.  (28374)

Indited in secretary hand with witnesses' signatures in both italic and secretary, the deed is followed by two blank pages on the interior (as usual); the witnesses were John Morroy (Morrey?) and John Best (Lest?), who both had fine signatures. Not unexpectedly, the widow signed with her mark. A docket on the last leaf's verso reads, “Xher [Christopher] Libthorpe To George Rothe” and another, in a second hand, adds, “and a Deed from Pickering to Post for a lot,” with a computation below on the same page.

The watermark appears to be a heart-shaped shield crowned by a fleur de lis, or trefoil; however we find no match in Briquet or Gravell.

•  Parry, E.C., “A Widow's Might,” Old York Road Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. XXVII, 1966. For the early history of Philadelphia, its incidents and denizens, see: Watson, Annals of Philadelphia (1850).   Previously folded in multiple places, and now along bifolium crease only; four small holes in the upper corner where previously stapled or pinned. “Lacing,” a result of the iron gall ink's exposure to moisture, is in evidence here but does not affect the legibility or stability of the deed, which is neatly repaired in two places at the outer edge of the first recto near the remnants of the red wax seal. An attractive relic of colonial American, Pennsylvania/Philadelphia, commercial, and women's history.  (29823)

This is the second U.S. edition of the original German text, following Saur's printing of the previous year; Saur had previously published an English translation, The Everlasting Gospel, in 1753. Neither the present example nor the 1768 printing are widely held institutionally outside of Pennsylvania.

•  ESTC W21009; Evans 11304; Sabin 80878; Hildeburn, Pennsylvania, 2484; Arndt & Eck, German Language Printing in the U.S., 368.   Period-style mottled calf, covers framed in blind double and triple fillets, spine with raised bands ruled in blind; entirely plain without spine labels. Title-page with repaired tear; upper outer corner and portion from middle to outer part of page lost and replaced some time ago, with loss to up to half of nine lines.  (25486)

ten oversized, folding maps

•  Sabin 81135; Howes S461; American Imprints 44-5635.   Publisher's plain paper–covered boards, recently rebacked with olive green cloth, spine with new antiqued printed paper label; paper rubbed and stained. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page and sectional title, no other markings. All leaves affected by an unusual sort of very light and remarkably even waterstaining that left the upper outer corners (only) untouched and even bright, with a variously wavy line of light to moderate brown marking the “border”; otherwise a few other pages with other soiling or staining; one page with smudge of green ink, touching but not obscuring text; one leaf with short tear from upper margin, not extending into text; and a bit of cockling. An excellent example of a good book that has suffered accidents but also is “better than it sounds.”  (29420)