“I AM RESOLVED TO FREE MYSELF FROM THE TYRANT OF RUM”

GOUGH, John B. Sunlight and Shadow or, Gleanings from My Life Work. Hartford: A.D. Worthington, 1881. Octavo, original gilt- and blind-stamped purple cloth. $400.

First edition of this collection of anecdotes from Gough’s popular temperance lectures, with a steel-engraved frontispiece portrait and 12 full-page wood engravings.

"His speech, rich with evangelical symbolism and Victorian language, was filled with urgency… Gough's appeal to emotion was rooted in his belief, shared with other evangelicals, that temperance was primarily about individual conversion to a pledge of personal abstinence" (ANB).

Text and plates fine, rear inner paper hinge splitting. Some toning, light rubbing, and slight soiling to original cloth, gilt very bright. A very good copy.