GEORGE STEVENS' HISTORY OF… METHODISM, IN PUBLISHER'S DELUXE FULL MOROCCO BINDING

STEVENS, Abel. The History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century Called Methodism. New York: Carlton & Porter, circa 1858-61. Three volumes. Octavo, original blind-stamped brown morocco, raised bands, marbled endpapers and edges. $1200.

Mixed edition of this essential illustrated history of Methodism and its denominations, with dozens of plates depicting important figures in Methodism, in publisher's scarce and handsome full morocco binding.

"A history of that movement [Methodism] which has exerted, and is still exerting, so powerful an influence upon all denominations of Christians, cannot fail to be interesting and profitable. Dr. Stevens is one of the ablest writers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in this country. He regards this religious movement as general, and designs to write its history as such, until it was reduced into sectarian organizations, and then follow it into those organizations" (contemporary review, The New Englander). Mixed edition: Volume I title page marked "Twenty-First Thousand" (implying later publication of the 1858 first edition); Volume II title page marked "Seventeenth Thousand" (implying later publication of the 1859 first edition); and Volume III presumed first edition. Bookstamps of O.J. Prall, mentioned in Hubbell's History of Methodism and the Methodist Churches of Staten Island as an appointed fundraiser for the Asbury Church.

Light foxing to interiors. In very handsome publisher's morocco bindings.