Church Missionary Society

•  Hills 259; Shaw & Shoemaker 30867. Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding rubbed, front joint cracked, back joint starting from top, spine extremities chipped. Front pastedown with private collector’s small bookplate, title-page with early inked ownership inscription in upper margin. Pages age-toned.

•  Darlow & Moule 8986.  Recent library brown buckram, slightly darkened patch to lower spine; gilt title at top and two gilt rules. Old seminary library pressure-stamp to title-page, two additional light rubber-stamps, pencilling on verso of title. Clean, neat, and strong. (27078)

The story of the publication is this: In 1833 the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions asked Dr. Elijah Coleman Bridgman, the first U.S. Protestant missionary to China, to obtain a set of wood printing blocks containing the Sermon on the Mount and a supply of Chinese paper and to send these to Boston. The purpose was to use the wooden blocks to cast stereoplates in hopes that their long-lasting qualities and relatively low amortized cost would obviate the need to develop a system of producing Chinese in roman characters or an entirely new alphabet to be used on presses printing from moveable type. All reports are that only a small number of copies were printed from the plates; the exercise was, after all, an experiment, and indeed a commitment to moveable type was soon made for printing work going forward.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and COPAC locate only four holding libraries worldwide of this text, at Harvard-Yenching, Cambridge University (in the collection of the British and Foreign Bible Society), the Boston Athenaeum, and the Massachusetts Historical Society; but we know of a copy at the Watkinson Library, Trinity College, Hartford. All other copies reported are microforms, all taken from the copy at the Yenching Library.

Provenance:  Signature of William Jenks on wrapper with date of 1834. Jenks was a Congregational Minister, member of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, and founder of a mission for seamen; he opened the Mariner's Church on Central Wharf, in Boston. Besides his pastorate, he was a scholar and author who taught Oriental Languages and English at Bowdoin College; a member of the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the New England Historic Genealogical Society; and a founding member of the American Oriental Society.

•  Spillett, Catalogue of Scriptures in the Languages of China, 36; Darlow & Moule 2481. Not in Shoemaker. On the history of this printing of the Sermon, see: Chinese Recorder, Vols. 10–11, p. 208.   Printed on Chinese paper and bound (sewn) in the Asian style, in yellow wrappers; small piece missing from corner of rear wrapper at spine and another corner chipped and repaired. Housed in a quarter red morocco tray case. A fine copy.  (31850)

Scarce.  OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 find only one U.S. holding of this edition.

•  Darlow & Moule 7340; Book of a Thousand Tongues (2nd ed.) 1047 (for first ed.).   Publisher's blue textured cloth, spine with printed paper label; boards and spine sunned (spine more so), with cloth cracked at joints and rubbed at extremities, spine label chipped and faded, spine with small area of discoloration and inked shelving number. Front pastedown with institutional bookplates. Two leaves towards front and last two leaves each with inner margins reinforced some time ago. Pages slightly age-toned, with occasional small pencilled marks of emphasis and marginalia in both English and Farsi.  (25151)

•  Publisher's purple cloth with faded printed paper spine label. Ex-library: call number on spine, bookplate removed, pencilled notations, rubber-stamps. Withal, a clean crisp copy.  (21736)

The Rev. Wright (1788–1853) spent over 30 years among the Choctaw people in Mississippi and Oklahoma. He founded the Wheelock Mission (named for his friend Eleazer Wheelock, Dartmouth College's first president) in 1832, where he was directly involved in developing the Choctaw written language, along with Byington and Dukes.

•  Darlow & Moule 3051; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Choctaw-9; North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 265; Pilling, Muskhogean, 101; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2744. Not in Field; not in Sabin.   Period-style half morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and date. First and last pages slightly smudged, text otherwise clean; a few scattered signatures unopened. A handsome copy of an uncommon and significant New Testament.  (29504)

•  Matthew: Darlow & Moule 6788. John: Darlow & Moule 6789. Both: Pilling, Algonquian, 420; North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 296.   Contemporary pebbled brown cloth, front cover detached, spine sunned. Pages age-toned. First two leaves of John each with short tear from upper margin, not touching text.  (26209)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia notes that Dominique Bouhours (1632–1702) was best known to English readers as the author of this much-reprinted work and an earlier life of Ignatius of Loyola; for a long time these were “the most widely circulated biographies” of the two saints. Bouhours also achieved prominence for his anti-Jansenist writings.

The pair of volumes were nicely printed, with some nicely engraved head- and tailpieces. The text offers sidenotes.

Rare.  A search of OCLC records only two copies, of which this is one, now deaccessioned.

•  De Backer-Sommervogel, I, 1904–1905; Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica, 146.   Recent full calf, covers framed and panelled with single gilt fillets and with gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spines gilt extra, with gilt-ruled raised bands, gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels, gilt publication date at foot, and elaborately gilt-tooled floral decorations in compartments; marbled endpapers. Tear in outer margin of pp. 269/270, just barely touching sidenotes; very occasional foxing; offsetting from leather of previous binding affecting first and last leaves at margins, including title-pages. Ex-library, with faint penciled notations on verso of title-page and at base of following page in each volume. Vol. I lacks the frontispiece portrait. Faults noted, still a good copy and in an attractive binding.  (24526)

Provenance: Front free endpaper with inked gift inscription reading “Compliments of Jos. W. McMurrin / July 19th 1896.” Joseph William McMurrin (1858–1932), a Mormon missionary and general authority, served as one of the seven presidents of the First Quorum of Seventy.

•  Crawley 688 (for 1852 stereotyped ed.); Flake & Draper 626; Sabin 83067.   Publisher's textured blue cloth, framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding unobtrusively rebacked, showing virtually no wear. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Front free endpaper with inscription as above. (20999)

The volume ends with a “Corona Florida a la Santisima Trinidad,” being a small literary collection of coplas, canciones, and a romance “en Metafora del Sol, que discurre por los doce signos del Zodiaco.”

Binding: Publisher's mottled sheep, gilt spine extra. Marbled endpapers; all edges red.

•  Medina, Mexico, 8016.   Binding lightly worn. A few gatherings starting to extrude. A very good, clean copy.  (26851)

A special issue copy: Present here is an uncalled-for frontispiece. It is of four Capuchin martyrs, issigned by the artist Navarro, is engraved on copper, and is printed au sanguine — the color reserved foronly the most special copies of 18th-century books. This frontispiece is not called for by Medina and is not present in any of the copies reported as held in the U.S.

•  Medina, Mexico, 4991; Palau 45600; Sabin 11098; Maggs, Bibliotheca Asiatica, 611.   Full antique calf, spine gilt, leather label. Careful repairs, using archival tape, accomplished to old worming to most leaves; wormwork sometimes minimal and sometimes more extensive but never preventing reading. Quite a good copy.  (12725)

•  Front wrapper present, lacking rear one; removed from a bound volume. (15158)

•  Library Company, Afro-Americana, 4726.   Publisher's blind-stamped cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; spine and board edges sunned, cloth torn (repaired) and chipped at spine, spine with call number label. Front pastedown with institutional bookplate, title-page and map each with rubber-stamp, back free endpaper with circulation slip. Map and a few other leaves lightly foxed.  (19500)

Printed in black-letter, the volume is illustrated with an oversized, folding map of Lapland and a folding plate of Laplanders at work and at play, in addition to the double-page engraved title.

Scarce: Searches of OCLC and RLIN show only two U.S. locations.

Provenance: Front pastedown with bookplate of a 19th-century collector; front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription dated 1770; title-page with early inscription of J.H. Gronau.

•  Not in Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration. Contemporary half calf over paper-covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments; leather worn, paper discolored, one spine compartment with dark adhesion now chipping. All edges marbled. First text page with inked numeral in lower margin. Free endpapers excised, with offsetting from turn-ins to edges of front and back fly-leaves; back fly-leaf with corners torn away. Engraved title-page, map, and plate browned.  (19000)