Provenance: Elegant old lozenge-shaped ink-stamp on title-pages: “John Brymer Heir-Loom.”

The Book of Common Prayer was first printed in Mohawk in 1715 by William Bradford, with editions following in 1769 and 1780. The present edition, printed in parallel English and Mohawk, was revised by Daniel Claus, Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and printed for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; a preface is provided by Charles Inglis, the first Bishop of Nova Scotia.

•  Field 1073; Lande 1671; JCB catalogue, II, 3141; Sabin 6351; Pilling, Iroquoian, 14–16; Darlow & Moule 6796; Griffiths, Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer, 111.6.   Publisher's calf with modest gilt tooling on covers, round spine without raised bands; leather dry and powdering, abraded with some small loss of leather along board edges and joints. Occasional spots of foxing or old stains; some bleed-through of text as we've encountered with other copies; occasional offsetting from the plates. Two names inscribed on endpapers (“John Shadiker” in pencil and the earlier indecipherable signature of a “Rt. Rev.” in ink); also, the inscrutable inked word, “Moncetowo” (or “Mancetowo”). Housed in a quarter red morocco clamshell case. A good++ copy.  (24892)

Provenance: The front fly-leaf bears an inked inscription reading “From this Book our 4 Dear Children were Babtized [sic] by the Rev. S. Good, Rector of St. Anns Blk. Friars, And afterwards Christened by their Dear Uncle the Rev. Charles Brown, Rector of Whitestone, near Exeter, Devon.” The children's baptismal dates range from 1806 through 1814.

•  ESTC T93069; Griffiths, Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer, 1791/7. Binding as above, leather slightly worn over joints and extremities. Front fly-leaf with collector's small bookplate, reverse with inscription as above, title-page with owner's name and date (1806) inked in upper margin. Pages clean.

Binding: Contemporary straight-grain dark blue morocco now tending to olive, covers framed with a gilt single fillet; round spine with raised bands, blind roll on each band, and each band defined by gilt rules above and below it. Spine with compartments stamped in blind, gilt-stamped title, and gilt-stamped decorations at head and foot; place and date of publication in gilt at base of spine. All edges gilt; fore-edge painting as above.

•  ESTC T081415; Griffiths, Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer, 1758/1. Binding as above, corners a bit rubbed and joints somewhat more so, with upper and outer cover edges showing some fading. Front pastedown with small shelving number slip and small bookplate of a private collector. Pages very slightly age-toned, otherwise clean save for minor bleed to some outer margins from the fore-edge painting. Beautiful.

Binding:  Contemporary red straight-grain morocco, covers framed in gilt rolls and fillets, board edges with gilt roll of hashmark pattern. Spine gilt extra, turn-ins with Greek key gilt roll. All edges gilt. Housed in a black cloth slipcase with printed paper label.

•  NSTC L1859. Griffiths, Book of Common Prayer, 1814/3 (giving incorrect pagination, but correct collation by signature).   Binding as above, gilt dimmed in some places, front cover with faintly incised circular markings; edges, extremities, and joints rubbed. Some age-toning, occasional smudges. Final two leaves darkened, with short edge tears.  (24017)

The New York printing firm of M'Elrath, Bangs & Herbert is very interesting. Its principal Samuel Bangs was in the city (and with those partners) only for a short period, after his disastrous experience with the Mina Expedition and prior to moving to Texas permanently and becoming its first printer.

•  Mark: Darlow & Moule 6800; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Mohawk 4; Pilling, Proof-Sheets of a Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians, 439. On Sam Bangs in the printing firm of M'Elrath, Bangs & Herbert, see: Spell, Pioneer Printer, p. 63–64. Recent quarter cloth shelfback with blue-green paper sides in the style of American bindings of the period. Small pressure-stamp of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and with two different copies of its library regulations laid in. A very good copy of an uncommon indigenous-language item.

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)

This is a reply to the two parts of Reasons for refusal of subscription to the booke of common praier by Thomas Hutton; A brotherly perswasion to unitie, and uniformitie in judgement, and practise touching the received, and present ecclesiasticall government, and the authorised rites and ceremonies of the Church of England by Thomas Sparke; A briefe answer unto certaine reasons by way of an apologie delivered to the Right Reverend Father in God, the L. Bishop of Lincolne by William Covell; and to works by Francis Mason and Thomas Rogers.

Parts one and three of this work were printed by W. Jones’ secret press, this second was possibly produced in Amsterdam by J. Hondius (STC).

Rare in U.S. libraries.  ESTC locates copies only at Folger, Harvard, Huntington, Illinois, and Union Theological.

Sophisticated copy: Last two leaves supplied from a different copy and noticeably cut down and soiled.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 13395; ESTC S104078.   Modern quarter blue calf. Ex-library with bookplate and rubber-stamp on bottom edge of closed book and no other stamps. Last two leaves supplied from another copy and closely trimmed into the top line of each page, not costing any words, but taking the tops of many letters. Last two leaves soiled.  (19516)

•  Publisher's cloth with dust jacket. New. (5926)