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The anonymously published work is signed “An Antiepiscopalian”; the title-page here bears a hand-inked attribution to Matthew Wilson.

An important entry in the literature of the “American Bishops” controversy in the lead-up to the American Revolution.

•  ESTC W13420; Evans 10947; Felcone 126; Hildeburn 2370; Sabin 11876.   Recent binding: boards appealingly covered in paper printed with 18th-century music, front cover with printed paper label. Two pages (not including title) institutionally rubber-stamped. Title-page with early inked ownership inscription and annotations, later lined through, with authorial attribution in the later hand. Lacking pp. 17/18, with final leaf tattered and text on p. 19 lined-through-by-show-through of X'es “deleting” manuscript notes on the verso (still, readable). Pages age-toned and lightly spotted, with edges untrimmed. One leaf with early inked annotation along outer margin.  (28100)

•  Publisher's plain grey cloth, spine with printed paper label; binding with spots of mild staining, small area of discoloration at head of spine. Ex–social club library: call number on front pastedown, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Pages clean.  (28159)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 1953. On Brown, see: Dictionary of National Biography, VII, 37–38 (under William Laurence Brown). Relatively unworn library buckram; library name pressure-stamped on covers and its bookplate to front pastedown. Hinges reinforced at rebinding with cloth and first few pages fragile along line of reinforcement; front free endpaper separated. Title-page and a few others faintly stamped, title-page with crossed-out ownership inscription. Some offsetting; a very few instances of pencilled underlining; corners occasionally dog-eared or chipped. Overall a fairly decent copy, suffering a bit from earlier "conservation." (2740)

This edifying story isillustrated with a maritime vignette on the front cover, a frontispiece, and five rather large in-text engravings, one of which has some early hand coloring (the “nimble” colt pictured is now chestnut).

•  American Imprints 11639. Not in Rosenbach, Children's.   Publisher's printed paper–covered sides with sheep shelfback, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding darkened and rubbed overall, especially at extremities, spine with gilt mostly lost and head chipped. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription. Scattered spots of minor foxing and staining. Clearly read and loved, but not abused.  (29987)

•  Publisher's embossed cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; corners and spine extremities showing minor wear, with gilt oxidized. Front free endpaper with pencilled inscription; some page edges with small blotches. Binding very handsome in its subtle way. Impossible! to get a good image of! (12986)

•  Publisher's red cloth, stamped in gilt on the spine. New.

New Jersey

Vol. I opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the author, done by Henry Cook after Hervé; vol. III is illustrated with an oversized, folding plate of a water-engine intended for millwork, devised by the author, and a plate of another of his inventions: the automated “chamber fire escape”, which enables anyone to lower him- or herself from a high window. This is the third edition, following the first of 1807.

•  NSTC H625; Sabin 30461.   Contemporary speckled sheep, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels; vol. I with joints and extremities refurbished, vols. II and III with spines and edges rubbed, old strips of library tape reinforcing spine heads. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages, vols. II and III with paper shelving labels at top of spines (vol. I showing signs of now-absent label). Vol. I title-page with offsetting from frontispiece; vol. III with pp. 69–72 excised (two leaves of a rather long religious-themed letter from Harriott to his son) and with upper portion of one leaf crumpled, reinforced some time ago. Some light age-toning, intermittent small spots of foxing and ink-staining, pages generally clean. Utterly absorbing.  (30651)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with early inked ownership inscription of James Beatty; two additional similar inscriptions dated 1825 and 1826. First preface page with genealogical annotations regarding the Beatty family, including remarks on the Staten Island Moravian Church's acquisition of John Beatty's land, and a note that the James Beatty who owned this volume was the son of that donor; all three generations of Beattys were strong supporters of the Moravian Church.

•  Howes L474; Field 952; Sabin 42110; ESTC T88588.   Contemporary mottled sheep, shellacked, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; front cover with small abrasions, joints and extremities rubbed, spine with leather cracked (at one point deeply) and and chipped at head, joints starting from head and foot but binding still holding nicely. Map lacking. inner page portions with irregular semicircular of browning, sometimes deep into pages, sometimes quite shallow; old waterstaining across lower outer corners at beginning and end of volume only. Occasional other stains; occasional pencilled underlining.  (29265)

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)

Binding: Mid- to late-19th-century binding, with binder’s ticket of the True American Bindery of Trenton, NJ.

•  Half morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped titles and blind-stamped decorative devices; edges and sides moderately rubbed with a bit of paper skinned from cover of vol. II. Most pages with some degree of foxing.  Handsome on shelf, solid in hand.