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A sumptuous Didot production, richly illustrated with the publisher’s state-of-the-art chromolithography and photogravure. Both first and second editions appeared in 1877. Uncommon in such fine, bright condition.

First edition, Charles Wesley’s verse epistle to his brother John, written during the crisis of the Methodism in the 1750s on the subject of the movement’s separation from the Church of England. For the the Methodist conference of 1755 John had prepared a paper entitled, Ought we to separate from the Church of England? in which he urged that, ‘whether or not it was lawful, separation was not expedient, believing that as a result Methodism would dwindle into an ineffective sect’ (Oxford DNB).

First edition. The passages of scripture ‘in the style of Ossian’ are in prose and verse and include ‘The Song of Deborah and Barak’, ‘Saul’s Death and David’s Lamentation’ and ‘The Tears of Salem’. The subscribers are mainly local to Northumberland and the Scottish Borders. Not in Jackson or Johnson. Scarce: ESTC: BL (2), Edinburgh, NLS, Bodley, Keble College, LC and Yale.

First editions of all three parts. The Poetical Essay ‘rehearses arguments from order and design to refute the teachings of Aristotle and Epicurus. It rewrites Lucretius’s apostrophe to Venus as an address to conscience, and ends by illustrating the providence of God through a brief, polemical, and strongly anti-Catholic history of the English church in the sixteenth century. The poem went through three editions, and was reprinted in Roberts’s Poems, editions of which appeared in 1774 and 1776’ (Oxford DNB). Jackson, pp. 9-10.

First edition, dedicated to ‘the people called Methodists in general—more especially to the Reverend the Clergy, and the Lay-Preachers in Connection with the Rev. John Wesley’.

Kershaw was an itinerant Methodist preacher from Halifax, who accompanied Wesley on some of his journeys to the North of England, and Scotland. In about 1770 he settled at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, where ‘much of his leisure... was devoted to writing. In 1780 he published An Essay on the Principal Parts of the Book of the Revelations. The same year his epic poem The Methodist Attempted in Plain Metre was published in Nottingham. Wesley’s disapproval was less on the grounds of its lack of literary merit than for fear that it brought reproach on the Methodists and would hinder the sale and reading of more profitable literature. As a result, the Methodist conference of 1781 decreed that in future no preacher should publish until the text had been seen and edited by Wesley, and that any profits from such publications should be paid into a common fund’ (Oxford DNB). Not in Jackson; no in Johnson.

First edition. ‘Arabert, a young ecclesiastic, retired to the content of La Trappe, in obedience to a vow he had taken during a fit of illness: Leonora, with whom he had lived in the strictest intimacy, followed her lover, and by the means of a disguise, obtained admission into the monastery, where a few days after she assisted at her lover’s funeral’ (Advertisement).

‘Mr. Jerningham has once more paid his court to his favourite muse Melpomene, and solicited her auspices in another tender tale. We have had so many occasions to speak of this gentleman’s poetical merit, that we shall now rest satisfied with letting his works speak for themselves’ (Monthly Review). Jackson, p. 8.

First edition, dated Fort St George, 1 January 1775. A discussion of the Hindu practice of sati, when a widow immolates herself on her dead husband’s funeral pyre, something the poet had witnessed for himself. Born in Calcutta to Irish parents, Irwin served the East India Company in a civil capacity at Madras, before posting to China for two years and a return to England. Jackson, p. 43.

An attractive pocket bible.

With Cobbett’s autograph dedication addressed to Pope Pius VIII: ‘To His Holiness Pope Pius the Eighth. The present head of that holy church under the influence of which England enjoyed so many ages of plenty freedom happiness and renown this new edition of the history of the Protestant Reformation is dedicated by and in the handwriting of His Holinesses Most Humble Servant William Cobbett. Kensington [1?]0 May 182.’

A History of the Protestant Reformation describes at great length the means employed by the state to dispossess the English poor, beginning with the crown’s appropriation of church lands during the Reformation. It first appeared in two parts (1824–7) was a bestseller and was several times reprinted, including in this second edition (preceded by at least one stereotyped reprint). Cobbett had enthusiastically espoused the cause of Catholic emancipation; his autograph dedication to the Pope apparently appears in more than one copy.

First edition of a profusely illustrated Jesuit life of Christ, whose plates were engraved from the numerous devotional pictures by Flemish masters collected by the Jesuit father Jérome Natalis.

[bound with:] — A plaine and familiar exposition of the eleuenth and twelfth chapters of the Prouerbs of Salomon. London: William Hall, for Thomas Man, 1612, pp. [viii], 191, [1], complete with first leaf, blank except for signature ‘A’ at foot, third edition, STC 6959;

[and:] — A plaine and familiar exposition of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth chapters of the Prouerbs of Salomon. London: R. B[radock]. for Roger Jackson..., 1609, pp.[iv], 1-45, 53, 52-54, 49, 48-49, 48, 55, 153, [3], complete with final blank, second edition, STC 6960;

[and:] — A plaine and familiar exposition of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seuenteenth chapters of the Prouerbs of Salomon. London: by Felix Kingston for Thomas Man, 1611, pp.[viii], 157, [3], complete with final blank, second edition, STC 6964;

[and:] DOD, John and Ronert CLEAVER. A plaine and familiar exposition: of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth chapters of the Prouerbs of Salomon... London: [William Stansby and Thomas Creede] for Roger Jackson, 1611, pp.[xii], 170, [2], complete with initial and final blanks; second edition, STC 6966.

Five works bound together, 4to (190 × 138 mm), woodcut ornaments and initials. Some light browning throughout, two small wormholes affecting upper line in final two works, becoming a track towards the end. Contemporary limp vellum, spine lettered in manuscript ‘Dod on Ye Proverbs’, soiled, upper hinge broken. Early inscription ’Mrs Joane Saunders’ to head of first dedication, later bookplate (Willey Park) and inscription ‘Jessie Hope - left to J.A.N. April 1900’.

Dod and Cleaver’s Plaine and familiar expositions were a Puritan publishing phenomenon. They were written while the two preachers were under a ban imposed by the Bishop of Oxford after they refused to subscribe to Whitgift’s Three Articles and were an inspiration to the generation of Puritans in England and America. Each book was separately issued and they appear bound up in a variety of formations, the present collection being typical. They were later collected as A brief Explanation of the whole book... of Salomon (1615).

The dedication to Sir Anthony Cope of Hanwell (patron of Dod’s former living in Oxfordshire) explains the desire to stir up evangelical zeal. ‘We are now more willing to make some worke for the Presse, because we have no imployment in the pulpit. And who knoweth, but that others... may be stirred up hereby, to publish some of their godly meditations; that as their faithful labours were formerly like pure fountaines, which did not only refresh their particular congregations: so now, by meanes of printing, they may be made like great and comfortable rivers, to water the whole Lands.’

New edition, first published in 1823. A selection of meditations by Thomas Wilson, the Bishop of Sodor and Man.

An attractive vernacular mass and prayer book, characteristic of German Catholic devotion of this period, with decorative calligraphic headings and vignettes. The title translates loosely as Little Catholic Prayer Book in which the best morning, evening, mass confession [and] communion prayers as well as the best litanies have been put together with other different prayers, written by me....’

James Speirs was a prolific evangelical speaker and publisher, whose printed output suggests he was an important figure in the Victorian Sunday School movement. Sown in the spring-time collects 12 addresses aimed at a juvenile audience by Speirs and others (R.L. Tafel, Alfred J. Johnson, Samuel Teed and Charles A. Faraday) several on a theme of natural metaphor: “About Hares and Tortoises”; “The Horse and its correspondence”, “The Serpent and its correspondence” and “Trees”. COPAC and Worldcat lists editions of 1876, 1877 and 1879. Worldcat lists 2 copies of this edition (Graduate Theological Union Library and Urbana College) but COPAC lists none in the UK

A comic picaresque novel and an anti-Jesuit satire recounting the life and adventures of Rozelli in a series of fanciful catastrophes and disasters, in the course of which he becomes a Catholic clergyman and then converts to Judaism. The title was first published in 1708 and went on to be republished a number of times during the eighteenth century, with translations into English, German and Dutch. The illustrations appeared first in an edition of 1729.

First edition of D’Urfey’s anonymously published satire on William Sherlock, lampooning his notorious abandonment of nonjuror principles and satirising the reputed influence of his much-reviled wife. A Church of England clergyman and religious controversialist, Sherlock had allied himself with the nonjurors in 1689 by conspicuously refusing to take the oath to the newly crowned William and Mary. Onlookers were stunned Sherlock subsequently performed a complete about-face and very publicly prayed for the King and Queen as de facto sovereigns in 1690, a move which inevitably provoked much scorn from all sides.

D’Urfey himself was a popular comic playwright whose career had flourished under the patronage of Charles II. Briefly left in the political wilderness during the more sober reign of James II, the coronation of William III in 1689 offered new opportunities which D’Urfey was quick to exploit. Having pledged himself to the whigs, he wrote birthday songs and odes for the king and queen and further curried favour by producing a series of anonymous poems in which he satirised those opposed to the new regime. Wing D2790B

Scarce first edition of this work on the medieval Scottish church, inscribed by the author: ‘James T. Gibson Craig esqe with the author’s compliments.’ Nineteenth-century author and historian, Joseph Robertson (1810-66) wrote widely on the history of Scotland; this pamphlet preceded by some years his seminal work on medieval ecclesiastical history, Concilia Scotiae (1866), a two-volume edition of the pre-Reformation Scottish church’s canon law and constitutions.

A collection of nineteenth century Scottish ecclesiastical pamphlets, principally by Robert Lee, the reforming Church of Scotland minister. Lee’s contribution was primarily in the reform of worship rather than theological debate, believing that worship should comprise three elements: word, prayer and praise. His controversial stance on a variety of topics led him to frequent clashes with conservative clergy and in 1859 he was unsuccessfully charged with unlawful innovations in worship.

First published in 1855 Timbs’s Curiosities is a wonderful catalogue of London facts and eccentricities: alchemists, coffee houses, Chelsea buns, fogs, law courts, railway termini, prisons - they’re all here.