AMERICANA TO 1820

The Globes & Practical Astronomy

•  Specifically written and "designed for the instruction of youth, and particularly adapted to the United States," this is divided into four major parts: I offers definitions; II demonstrates problem solving using a terrestrial globe (dialling, navigation, and geography); III teaches problem solving using a celestial globe (longitude, latitude, triangulation, etc.); and IV offers astronomical discussion (of the solar system, comets, eclipses, gravity, fixed stars, theory of tides, and so on). This student text is dense and comprehensive, and, although generally unillustrated, offers a few in-text illustrations to accompany word problems.  Wallace was a professor at Columbia College, South Carolina.

•  Parsons 434; Shaw & Shoemaker 27419. Contemporary quarter sheep, with marbled boards and leather spine label. Leather missing from top spine compartment; joints open but covers holding strong. Age-toning and spotting. Duplicate properly released from Georgetown University Library (Wallace was an ex-Jesuit); stamps on the pastedowns, title- and last page, with remainder of old shelf-label on spine. A good copy.

TYRANNY . . . by Taxation . . .

[Walsh, Robert].

Philadelphia: Hopkins & Early

•  An explanation of the tyranny that Napoleonic bureaucracy imposed upon the empire, with an especial focus on the oppressive tax system.

•  Sabin 101158; Shaw & Shoemaker 21936. 19th-century quarter green morocco with marbled paper sides; round spine with raised bands, gilt center ornaments in three compartments, title in gilt in one compartment.Ex–Library Company of Philadelphia, properly deaccessioned. Joints rubbed, top of spine pulled; foxing and staining. Uncut.

Anti-British & Early AmericanCatholicum

•  First edition of a vituperative anti-British study of British mistreatment of America in which the author quotes individual passages from the many published attacks on the new American nation by the British — launching fiery returns. In the book's dedication to Robert Oliver, an Irishman, Walsh says, “In the same nation which [the Irish] have always found a tyrannical mistress, [America], throughout her colonial existence, found a jealous step-mother, and now finds a malevolent scold.” He candidly admits that his purpose is “a collateral retaliation for [Great Britain's] continued injustice and invective.” Little wonder the DAB records that this work “brought congratulatory notes from Jefferson, John Adams, and John Quincy Adams and a vote of thanks from the Pennsylvania legislature, but occasioned denunciatory notices in British publications.” Of particular note is the lengthy section on the American slave trade, Walsh justifying it against fierce British attacks and describing the state of the institution as he saw it, at the time.

Provenance:  Released as a duplicate from the greatest collection of American Catholica in the world, the Georgetown University Library, with a few of the requisite and expected stamps; Walsh, a leading literary critic and editor of the American Quarterly, was an early and distinguished Catholic-American literateur.

•  Parsons 631; Shaw & Shoemaker 50024; Sabin 101158; Howes W67. On Walsh, see: The Dictionary of American Biography, XIX, 391–92.   Recent quarter natural linen shelfback with blue-green paper sides in the style of the era. Library markings noted above. A very good copy.  (24005)

Trade in Wartime

•  Paginated continuously with Ward’s Treatise of the Relative Rights and Duties, and apparently also issued as the second part of that document, this work discusses international law regarding trade in wartime; the 1793 stoppage by the English of American corn exportation to France is included and analyzed as an example.

•  Goldsmiths'-Kress 18239; NSTC W529. Recent paper wrappers. Some instances of light foxing and offsetting.

Contra Gibbon

•  Defense of early Christianity against the attack made by Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Richard Watson (1737–1816) had as his first love, chemistry; and he made a notable contribution to that science by his research and publications. He also pursued a career in the Church of England, becoming Bishop Llandaff, and he was both a supporter of Wilberforce in his efforts against the slave trade and a well-known apologist for Christianity—taking on Thomas Paine and Edward Gibbon. This work was first published at Cambridge in 1776, with the first American edition being printed at Providence, R.I., in 1794. There then followed three U.S. editions in 1796, the priority of which is unclear.

•  ESTC W011652; Evans 31561; not in Felcone, New Jersey Books 1698–1800. Contemporary speckled calf; spine with red leather title-label, gilt-lettered. Joints starting, leather with some stains and abrasions and a crack in upper part of front cover; some chipping to spine label. Rear free endpaper mostly lacking; front one with “bite” out of upper outer corner. Shallow dog ears and some very shallow chipping; browning from turn-ins and some water-staining, not obscuring impression. Three inked letters (“Eas”) on front free endpaper.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

•  A later edition of this long-popular work. This edition appears with the introduction but without illustrations.

•  Rosenbach, Early American Children's Books, 582; Shaw & Shoemaker 50058. Out of scope of Welch.   Publisher's marbled paper wrappers. Printed on off-white wove paper, age-toned, with faint waterstaining to outer portions of some leaves and scattered light spotting. A fresh, seemingly unused copy.  (24572)

Educational Counsel from aPopular Hymnographer

Watts, Isaac.

•  Watts was not only known as a writer of hymns, including those for children, but was also a philosopher, writing a book on logic. This work sets forth an ambitious and well-reasoned program for Christian liberal education.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 14175; On Watts, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, LX, 670. Contemporary speckled calf, somewhat rubbed, corners bumped with a little loss of leather therefrom. Occasional spots of browning or foxing and some small dog ears. Bookplate on front pastedown.

More Sovereignty to the People

•  Appeal for reform of the Pennsylvanian constitution in a more radically democratic direction and for reductions in the checks and balances placed on the legislature and in the power of the governor and judges. Isaac Weaver (1756–1830) was state treasurer. This work is also attributed to its printer, future U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William Duane (1780–1865).

Sole edition.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 14179 & 12469. Recent gray-green paper over light boards; front cover with paper label, lettered in black. Uncut copy. Paper lightly age-toned and deckle edges with some light browning, waterstaining, and traces of soiling.

For ANGLO-AMERICAN LAW,  click here.

The Dragon's Rage, The Shakers, & The Kingdom of Glory

Click the interior images for enlargements.

•  First edition of the very first Shaker hymnal, including the text without music for 140 hymns. The work also has the distinction of being the first book from a Shaker press, having been preceded only by broadsides and pamphlets. That the Hancock printers were still learning their art is evident by the at times wobbly impression of the type, the sudden shift to a smaller point size in part of the table of contents, etc. But it is a noble effort.

This work appeared during the period of American Shaker history when attention was expended on codifying Shaker beliefs and practices. This is the first attempt to codify the hymnal.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 30511; Richmond 1416.   Full original calf, plain style, rubbed overall with small chips on front cover; chip at head of spine, front joint starting. Paper browned, and some stains; a bit of blue crayon doodling in blank area of top left corner of p. 50. Early leaves with stitch holes in inner margin, not touching text; three leaves with tears, not affecting text. Ex–theological library with area of spine blacked out where call number once was; library name and five-digit number rubber-stamped on front pastedown, accession number inked and rubber-stamped at base of p. [iii]. (21139)

England to America: Fuhgeddaboudit!

•  The author rejects all the colonists' arguments for independence, upholds the king as supreme executive power from whom all other powers flow, and favors small farms. This is the sole edition.

•  Adams, American Controversy, 70-30; Sabin 103221. Sewing renewed; an uncut copy as issued. Ex–Franklin Institute Library with stamps. Dusty. Some chipping of edges of pages.

A Revolutionary War GENERAL . . .

or Was He a Colonel?

•  At the beginning of the Revolutionary hostilities Whitcomb was “old,” i.e., in his 50s and he was not called to service until the men of his militia regiment refused to budge without him. He is variously described as having served as a colonel or a general before retiring late in 1776. Click either image for enlargement.

In the document at hand, Whitcomb in his capacity of justice of the peace attests on the verso of the leaf to the authenticity of the document on the recto. His attestation is approximately 1.5" high by 8" wide, with a clear signature.

The document on the recto is a printed legal form by which Artemus How of Boton, Worcester County, Massachusetts Bay Province, sells 50 acres of land to Bezeleel Hale. Interestingly, both Artemus and his wife Abigail signed the instrument of sale.

•  On Whitcomb, see: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia. Good/Good+ condition: short fold tears. Three small areas of discoloration from old tape used to tip item into an album. With old pencilled dealer’s code (Sessler’s).

White of Savannah Opines as toEngland

•  First trade edition, following an issue of the same year privately printed for the author, here in an uncut copy in the original paper-covered boards. White, an American “of Savannah,” provides his impressions of British culture in London, Oxford, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and elsewhere in England — with many comparisons to the contemporary state of affairs in the United States.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 39807; Smith, Americans Abroad, W66. Contemporary paper-covered boards, spines with printed paper labels; darkened and worn, vol. I with covers detached and paper cracked over spine, vol. II with front joint open though presently holding Front pastedowns with bookplates of the Salem Library Company; vol. I with early inked inscriptions to endpapers and half-title. Light to moderate foxing, no other stains.

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BEFORE His Falling-Out withthe Wesleys — Travels in Georgia

Click the interior images for enlargements.

•  George Whitefield (1714–70), a Calvinist preacher who had also been an early follower of the Wesleys during the nascent years of Methodism, was a prime mover in the Great Awakening in the English colonies in American during the second quarter of the 18th century. The present works recount his travel to and in Georgia in aid of the Wesleys' efforts there; the Continuation offers half a dozen pages speaking to time spent in Ireland.

Fifth edition of the Voyage from London and second edition of the Continuation.

•  Voyage from London: Sabin 103534; Alden & Landis 739/343; ESTC T29204. Continuation: Sabin 103535 & 103538; Alden & Landis 739/340; ESTC T34033 & T34025.   Recent full calf antique-style with gilt concentric panels on covers and gilt corner-devices on same; round spine with raised bands, each accented by gilt rules. 19th-century wood-engraved portrait of Whitefield added as a frontispiece. A very pleasing volume.  (21775)

Politics for aPrince with a SHORT Attention Span

[Williams, David].

•  Fourth edition of this political primer (printed in the same year as the original publication), written by the founder of the Royal Literary Fund and addressed to the Prince of Wales, later George IV. A teacher, author, and minister, Williams visited France repeatedly and was actually made a French citizen in 1792; the Lessons reflect his unhappiness with the machinations of Fox, Pitt, and Sheridan as well as his admiration of some of the results of the American and French revolutions. The work is illustrated with an engraved frontispiece portrait of the prince, done by A. Van Assen, and with five charts depicting arrangements of political power in England and America at various time periods.

•  ESTC T167984. On Williams, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, LXI, 390–93. Removed from a nonce volume. Occasional spots of foxing with some offsetting around plates; some leaves dog-eared.

Church of ScotlandControversy

Willison, John.

• First American edition, preceded by two scarce Edinburgh and Glasgow issues (in 1744 and 1765, respectively), of this impassioned anti-Episcopalian commentary on the contemporary state of Scottish Protestantism, written by an evangelical divine who labored mightily in the name of unity of the Church of Scotland. The work serves as an important source of information on both civil and church history of the period; this copy is also an example ofa very early Pittsburgh imprint, following the first recorded printing in that city by only two years.

• Shaw & Shoemaker 16746. Contemporary treed sheep, worn and front cover with incisions; both covers with water damage to lower edges, spine with head chipped and gilt-stamped title somewhat rubbed. Front free endpaper with early inked notations and inscription dated 1819; title-page with early inked ownership inscription in upper margin. Some age-toning, occasional spots, last few leaves with waterstaining to lower outer corners—solid, and in much better condition inside than the binding description would augur.

An Ornithologist'sWalking Tour — Philadelphia to Niagara!

•  First edition, first issue (with the title-page giving June for the dateline): Detailed account in verse of three young men (Wilson being one) and theirwalking pilgrimage from Philadelphia, PA, to Niagara Falls. Wilson is best known as the author and illustrator of American Ornithology, in which his often-reproduced depiction of the white-headed (bald) eagle portrays that bird perched above the Falls; as described in the present poem, Wilson's eye was drawn on the party's first arrival at the rapids to “th[os]e gray eagles, gazing calm and slow, / On all the horrors of the gulf below; / Intent, alone, to sate themselves with blood, / From the torn victims of the raging flood” (p. 76).

Other birds mentioned as seen here include ducks (including canvasback), ospreys (“listening, pensive, to the distant roar / Of yon white falls that down the mountain pour” (p. 50)), geese, partridges, robins, woodcocks, owls, pheasants, blackbirds, and jays — with many of the aforementioned species falling victim to the party's guns at least once.

The poem originally appeared in 1809–10 in serial form in The Port Folio magazine and made its first appearance in book form after Wilson's death, printed at the Bucks County press of Simeon Siegfried at behest of the author's nephew. Its index provides, in addition to clarifications regarding bird species, notes on the local flora, fauna, geography, and idiomatic expressions. By general consensus, the work is much longer than it needs to be as poetry; but it is wonderful to read Wilson's descriptions of (and reactions to) what are now lost landscapes or unbelievably changed places — and it is wonderful to see the ornithologist's vision presented here in words, knowing what birds would emerge from his burin. One realizes that this was, whether consciously or no, a scientific expedition!

Provenance:  William B. Keyser's inscription, dated 1819; Keyser was a teacher at the Newtown Academy.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 46824; Sabin 104599; Wegelin, American Poetry, 1209.   Period-style quarter calf and marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands, binding signed by Starr Bookworks. Half-title with large inked ownership inscription of Keyser, as above, dated 1819. Title-page verso with affixed printed publication statement, as described in Sabin, with offsetting to recto. Pages age-toned and lightly spotted.  (24792)

Truth Informs GOODNESS

[Wollaston, William].

•  Deistic examination of the natural origins of morality, emphasizing truth as the foundation of virtuous behavior. Benjamin Franklin’s first professional typesetting experience was his composition work on the 1725 edition of this popular and influential treatise (Thomas Jefferson had a copy in his library), and that printing is here reissued with only the title-page date changed. Franklin published a response in the same year, the Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, in a small edition of perhaps 100 copies.

This has a very few, very elegant headpieces, tailpieces, and historiated initials.

•  ESTC T138654. Contemporary calf double-panelled in blind, outer and innermost panels speckled; blind-stamped corner fleurons, center panel framed in blind roll; spine with raised bands and painted gilt cross decorations. Leather worn, with medium-sized abrasions, and cracked over joints; binding still holding reasonably solidly. Front pastedown showing traces of now-absent bookplate; title-page with small inked notation in upper outer corner, and first text page with personal stamp. Pages gently cockled, with a few scattered spots, but generally clean.

Early U.S. Edition of aPioneering Work

•  Second American edition: Wollstonecraft’s most famous work, analyzing woman’s state and arguing for equality of education. Two years after exploring the origins and nature of the rights of men in her Vindication of the Rights of Men, Wollstonecraft published the present work — a book that shocked even liberals and her own sisters.

This Boston edition most likely appeared shortly after the Philadelphia edition printed in the same year; among the prominent American women’s rights activists known to have read and been influenced by the Vindication are Judith Sargent Murray, Abigail Adams, and (later) Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

•  Evans 25054; ESTC W2450; PMM 242 (for first ed.); Windle, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, A5d. Recent quarter calf over marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels and gilt-stamped devices between raised bands. Half-title mounted; a few leaves with old repairs to lower inner margins. Pages age-toned, with offsetting, staining, and spotting.

Wood’s Bible Dictionary

•  James Wood (1751–1840), a Methodist minister, largely based this encyclopedic dictionary of the Bible on that of Augustin Calmet.

This is the sole American edition. First printed in England in 1804.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 30564; NSTC W2651. Contemporary speckled sheep. Spines divided into compartments by double gilt rules with large red leather title labels and small round black volume labels, both edged with gilt fillets and gilt-lettered. Fine cracking to spines with shallow chipping from head and foot; edges rubbed, corners bumped. Pages with light browning around impression and on edges, with darker browning from turn-ins towards beginning and end of each volume. Large bite from rear free endpaper of vol. II; generally, text problem-free, with but a few shallow tears and chippings and a few light waterstains.

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Proclaiming America's Truly Illustrious Characters

•  First edition: An early national biographical dictionary, starting with Columbus and ranging through such illustrious names as Penn, Rittenhouse, Washington, and Jefferson.

Title-page and first introduction page inscribed "John Culberts Book."

•  Sabin 105167; Shaw & Shoemaker 50156. Contemporary treed sheep, front cover all but off, edges worn and back joint deeply abraded. Pages browned. Title-page faintly stamped by a now-defunct institution; front pastedown with old-fashioned bookplates.

FIRST Music Book PrintedTypographically in AMERICA

Click any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.

•  First edition of the most popular music book of its period, an oft-imitated hymnal with a prefatory “Introduction to the Grounds of Music: Or, Rules for Learners.” Pioneering printer, publisher, and historian Isaiah Thomas was most likely the compiler, but “no ostensible editor appears until the sixth edition, published in 1797, when Oliver Holden was engaged by Thomas to supervise that edition” (Evans).

This volume contains parts I and II only: A limited number of copies containing parts I and II only were issued in January 1786. “A few copies of the first and second part of this work, will, by request, be printed separately, in order to accommodate a few schools, which are at present destitute of books. The third part is now in the press, and will be published with all possible expedition” (advertisement on verso of title page, dated: Worcester, January, 1796).

This isthe first music book printed typographically in America: All previous music books had been engraved.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription reading “Warren Burr's Booke 1786.”

Uncommon: Only seven U.S. institutions report holdings of this first edition.

At top of the title-page: “Laus Deo!”

•  Evans 19752; Amer. Sacred Music 533; Sabin 95414c (under “Also”); ESTC W15184.   Contemporary limp sheep, covers framed in blind double fillets; ownership stamps effaced on both covers, spine and edges rubbed, foot of spine with paper shelving label. Front pastedown partially removed, with bookplate remnants beneath; back free endpaper lacking and front one with inscription as above; title-page with institutional rubber-stamp in lower margin; back pastedown rubber-stamped. Pages age-toned and foxed. Sewing loosening, text block pulling away from spine, leaves starting to separate. Occasional tiny, unobtrusive early inked “rec'd.” marks, witha very few measures of music corrected or added to in an early hand.  (24016)

Shaker “Statement”

Click the image to the right
for an enlargement.

•  Stated second edition, “corrected and improved,” of this important early Shaker book about their beliefs and history. First published in Lebanon, Ohio, in 1808. Preface signed in type by David Darrow, John Meacham and Benjamin S. Youngs, of whom the two first-named “signed their names not as authors, but as counsellors, and as sanctioning the work.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 22127.   Full original sheep, spine showing flex marks with small chips at extremities and a gilt-stamped leather title-label; first and last leaves with offsetting from leather turn-ins. Short tear at top margin of one leaf, without touching any text; some scattered spots of foxing. Ex-library with (attractive) old pressure-stamp to half-title, five-digit accession number rubber-stamped on front pastedown and base of p. [iii], evidence that an inked call-number on spine was sometime obscured. A clean, nice, solid copy. (21126)

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