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• 1 • 01PAINE, Thomas. Rights of Man. BOUND WITH: Rights of Man. Part the Second. London, 1791, 1792. Octavo, early speckled calf boards rebacked. $42,000 Extremely rare editions of both parts of Paine’s revolutionary classic Rights of Man. The exceptionally rare and desirable first edition, second issue of Part I, consisting of the text sheets from the famous suppressed and virtually unobtainable first issue printed by Paine’s original publisher, which were rescued by Paine and his friends, and the new title page and preface printed by Paine’s new publisher; bound together with the third edition of Part II “The publishing history of the [first part of Rights of Man] is of interest…. as showing how fragile the right to dissent actually was in those years. Having completed Part One… Paine made haste to take the manuscript to a printer named Joseph Johnson… Johnson was a man of some nerve and principle… but he took fright after several heavy-footed visits from William Pitt’s political police” (Hitchens, 51-52). “Johnson was visited repeatedly by government agents… Fearing the book police, and unnerved by the prospect of arrest and bankruptcy, Johnson suppressed the book on the very day of its scheduled publication… Paine reacted fast. He agreed to a deal with another publisher, J.S. Jordan on Fleet Street, and with the help of friends and a horse and cart delivered to him Johnson’s printed, unbound sheets… He then packed his trunk for Paris, where he planned to arrange a French translation… Prior to leaving, Paine passed on several bound copies of the original Johnson edition into private hands, but only a few of these have survived” (Keane, 304-5). Jordan took Johnson’s unbound sheets of the text and added a new title page with Jordan’s imprint and a preface that Paine sent him from Paris. Jordan published his edition (this first edition, second issue) on March 13, 1791, and it sold out in hours. It’s not known how many copies of this issue Jordan published using Johnson’s sheets, but it was likely only in the hundreds of copies. “Not even Paine could have imagined… that Rights of Man was destined to become one of the bestselling books in the history of publishing… Rights of Man broke every extant publishing record…. Rights of Man sold over 50,000 copies in under three months. While Paine’s claim that sales of the complete edition in Britain reached ‘between four and five hundred thousand’ copies within ten years of publication might well be exaggerated… its impact was indisputably phenomenal” (Grogan, 18). The British government decided against prosecuting Paine for sedition shortly after the publication of Part I, but in 1792, after the publication of the more incendiary Part II and the rapid spread of both parts, the British government took action against Paine, his publishers and booksellers. “Bookshops selling Rights of Man were visited and harassed by agents of the book police, and sometimes arrested, prosecuted, fined, or imprisoned.” Jordan was arrested in May 1792 and pleaded guilty, and many “booksellers were imprisoned, some for as long as for two years, for selling Rights of Man” (St. Clair, 624). The first issue of Part I (with Johnson’s title page imprint) is so rare it is considered virtually unacquirable; this is the earliest obtainable edition. Third edition of Part the Second, stated on title page. A few early ink marginalia in Part II. Only very light occasional foxing to Part I. A handsomely bound copy in fine condition. "THE CLEAREST OF ALL EXPOSITIONS OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY" (PMM)
• 2 • 02(BURKE, Edmund). A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London, 1757. Octavo, contemporary full dark brown calf rebacked with original spine laid down. $5200 First edition of Edmund Burke’s influential work on “themes that dominated Burke’s thinking,” a touchstone in the development of British Romanticism and the theoretical foundation for his celebrated 1790 work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, scarce in contemporary calf. Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry “might well be said to signalize the point at which aesthetic taste in England changed from the classical formalism of the earlier years of the 18th century to the romanticism of the later years” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy I, 430). One of the single greatest influences on British Romanticism and the rise of the Gothic, Burke’s landmark essay propelled by debates surrounding a 17th-century translation of the classical essay “On the Sublime.” His analysis of pleasure and fear became the first to carefully explore “the imaginative power of the unbounded and infinite, and the unstated and unknown” (Blackburn, 52). The Philosophical Enquiry much “anticipates the themes that dominate Burke’s political thinking throughout his career” (Yolton I, 144). Influential thinkers such as Mary Wollstonecraft saw that Burke’s most celebrated work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), “was largely based on aesthetic positions he developed 30 years earlier in On the Sublime and the Beautiful” (Shiner, The Invention of Art, 163). This first edition, issued anonymously, was “a rather small edition, possibly like the Vindication limited to 500 copies.” First issue first state with the uncorrected “SECT. IV” on page 179, corrected “SECT. VII” on page 180: both corrected late in the printing. No priority established as “most copies exhibit one mixture [of formes] or another” and none exist in a completely uncorrected state (Todd 5a). Bound with half title. Engraved armorial bookplate; owner ink signatures, including one on title page. Interior quite clean, light restoration to extremities. A nicely restored copy, desirable in contemporary calf. “AT CERTAIN DISTANCES, DANGER AND PAIN ARE DELIGHTFUL”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF BURKE’S INFLUENTIAL TREATISE ON THE SUBLIME, IGNITING BRITISH ROMANTICISM AND HIS LATER WORK ON REVOLUTION
• 3 • “I HAVE BEEN… WITNESS TO TWO OTHER REVOLUTIONS… I SEE THE ARDOR FOR LIBERTY CATCHING AND SPREADING… THE DOMINION OF KINGS CHANGED FOR THE DOMINION OF LAWS…”: 1789 FIRST EDITION OF PRICE’S DISCOURSE ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY, FAMOUSLY ATTACKED BY BURKE AND DEFENDED BY PAINE AND WOLLSTONECRAFT 03PRICE, Richard. A Discourse on the Love of Our Country, Delivered on Nov. 4, 1789… to the Society for Commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain. With an Appendix. London, 1789. Slim octavo, period style half brown calf and marbled boards. $7500 First edition, first impression, of one of Price’s most important and famous works, his controversial and incendiary sermon on the revolutionary progress of human rights from England’s 1688 Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions. The first edition sold out within days and ignited the British pamphlet war over the French Revolution known as “the Revolution Controversy.” The work provoked Edmund Burke’s strong attacks on Price in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and eloquent defenses of Price in Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and Paine’s Rights of Man (1791). Political philosopher and minister Richard Price (17231791), a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, was “the most influential British advocate of American independence” (Howes P586). His 1776 work Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America was one of the most important and frequently reprinted works of the period. In November 1789, within months of the start of the French Revolution, Price stood before a London meeting of the Society for the Commemoration of England’s 1688 Glorious Revolution and, with this provocative Discourse in praise of revolution, triggered a war of words that sparked Edmund Burke’s incendiary refutation in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), which prompted defenses of Price in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), the first part of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791), and notable works by Catherine Macaulay, Joseph Priestly, William Godwin, and others. First impression, with “Marmontel” on page 14, line 6 (corrected to “Fenelon” in the second impression). Copies of the first edition are quite scarce; though many are held by prominent institutions in the UK and US, copies rarely appear on the market or at auction. Complete with scarce half title and rear ad leaf promoting other works by Price; appendix page [4] is blank as issued. ESTC T31992. Thomas, Stephen, and Jones, A Bibliography of the Works of Richard Price, 38a. Kress B1697. Goldsmith I:14055. Text fresh with only light scattered foxing. A fine wide-margined copy, handsomely bound.
• 4 • AN AMERICAN RARITY—THOMAS JEFFERSON’S PERSONAL COPY OF LLOYD’S “SUPERIOR” EDITION OF ESTIENNE’S HISTORICAL DICTIONARY, 1671, WITH HIS INITIALED OWNERSHIP MARKINGS—THE SANG COPY 04(JEFFERSON, Thomas) STEPHANO, Carolo (ESTIENNE, Charles). Dictionarium Historicum, Geographicum, Poeticum. Oxford, 1671. Small folio, contemporary full dark brown calf rebacked with original gilt-decorated spine laid down, custom cloth clamshell box. $80,000 A superb Presidential association copy—Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy with his characteristic ownership markings of an important historical dictionary based on Estienne’s famous 16-century Dictionarium, “the first French encyclopedia.” This is an early reissue of editor Nicholas Lloyd’s Oxford 1670 edition, in Latin, an updated and improved edition of Estienne’s work. This volume was in Jefferson’s final “Retirement Library” when he died, and it contains Jefferson’s characteristic ownership identification marks—he has penned a “T” before the signature mark “I” on page 33 and a “J” after the signature mark “T” on page 73. Jefferson built three collections of books in his lifetime. The first burned in a fire at his childhood home, Shadwell, in 1770. In 1815, Jefferson sold his second collection of books to the government in order to help rebuild the collection of the Library of Congress, which had been destroyed during the War of 1812. The third collection was dispersed after Jefferson’s death in 1826, largely through auction to satisfy creditors. Jefferson purchased this copy in 1817 from a French bookseller; the original invoice is at the Massachusetts Historical Society and has been transcribed in the Papers of Thomas Jefferson. This is an early reissue (with new 1671 title page) of Lloyd’s updated, expanded, and improved 1670 Oxford edition of Estienne’s historical dictionary of classical and Biblical people, places, and other proper names, the “first French encyclopedia.” (Sowerby 141). In 1553, “Estienne printed the first edition of his ‘Historical Dictionary,’ the first book to which this title was given, and the first that purported to be a universal Dictionary of Biography, modern as well as ancient… In 1670, Nicholas Lloyd published at Oxford an edition of the ‘Dictionarium Historicum’ of Charles Estienne, but with numerous additions, corrections, alterations, and omissions, a book which gave the author a high reputation, not only in England, but on the Continent, where it was acknowledged as superior to any of the previous editions of the book of Charles Estienne” (Quarterly Review). Eight pages bear contemporary ink corrections or annotations in another hand. Occasional foxing, light wear to covers, corners expertly restored. A very good copy, with an extraordinary provenance, most rare from Jefferson’s library and with his ownership markings.
• 5 • “THE MOST FAMOUS AMERICAN BOOK OF COLONIAL TIMES AND THE INDISPENSABLE SOURCE FOR COLONIAL SOCIAL HISTORY”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF MATHER’S MAGISTERIAL HISTORY OF COLONIAL MASSACHUSETTS, IN CONTEMPORARY BOARDS, COMPLETE WITH IMPORTANT MAP 05MATHER, Cotton. Magnalia Christi Americana: or, the Eccelsiastical History of New-England, from its first planting in the year 1620, unto the year of our Lord, 1698… London, 1702. Folio, contemporary full dark brown paneled speckled calf rebacked. $15,000 The exceptionally rare and exceedingly significant first edition of Cotton Mather’s salvation history of colonial Massachusetts, the “most important 18th-century American book” (Howes M391), including the earliest 18th-century general map of New England (often not present). Mather’s magnum opus is a monument of moral urgency and reforming zeal, “a collection of essays, memorials and addresses intended to call a wayward generation back to the principles and practices upon which [New England] was founded” (Magill, 557-58). Mather portrays colonial America, most especially Massachusetts, as a land both guided by God’s providential hand and threatened by the schemes of Satan. He offers numerous biographical sketches... and also “preserves numerous details about the religious leaders and theological attitudes” of his day (Peckham, 49), including such “heretics” as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, and discussions of the Salem witchcraft trials. In still other portions of the text, Mather “proves himself a master of description and narration. His circumstantial stories of shipwrecks and pirates, of Indian raids, adulteries and murders must have contributed greatly to the popularity of the Magnalia in his own day” (Magill, 561). “Mather’s Magnalia is the most famous American book of colonial times and the indispensable source for colonial social history” (Streeter 658). Composed beginning in 1693, the Magnalia Christi Americana remains “among the great works of English literature in the 17th century… Somehow, as no one else can, Cotton Mather makes you by and by feel what the Puritan ideal was” (Wendell, 161). The book is also renowned for including “the first general map of New England published in the 18th century” (Schwartz & Ehrenberg, 133). The “Mather map,” present in this copy, is often missing. The first American edition of the Magnalia would not appear until 1820. Rare errata provided in facsimile on one leaf; the work is considered complete without it. Engraved armorial bookplate of Francis John Stainforth (1797-1866), British Anglican clergyman who served as a curate in London-area parishes and a collector of books, stamps, and shells. His library included, at the time, perhaps the largest private collection of books by women writers. Text generally quite clean. Folding map with neat three-inch archival repair to verso of one fold only; image clean and fine. Light wear to corners, rubbing to board edges. An extremely good, neatly rebacked copy.
• 6 • “SATAN SEEMED TO BE MORE LET LOOSE, AND RAGED IN A DREADFUL MANNER”: JONATHAN EDWARDS’ FAITHFUL NARRATIVE, DESCRIBING THE BEGINNINGS OF THE RENOWNED “GREAT AWAKENING” RELIGIOUS REVIVAL IN AMERICA, 1738 FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, PRINTED IN BOSTON 06EDWARDS, (Jonathan) Revd. A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton and in the Neighbouring Towns and Villages of Hampshire, in the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay of New-England… BOUND WITH: [Discourses on Various Important Subjects]. Boston, 1738. Small octavo (4-1/2 by 7-3/4 inches), contemporary full brown sheep. $10,000 First American edition of this important account of “The Great Awakening” by one of the most famous American religious figures, creator of “the first great religious revival of modern times” (ANB). Bound with Edwards’ Discourses on Various Important Subjects, a collection of five sermons. Edwards’ Faithful Narrative describes Christian conversion in his congregations in Northampton, Massachusetts, during the Great Awakening. “Edwards was apparently a stranger to Northampton in 1726, and his Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737) describes both the utopian community he had heard attributed to Stoddard’s dominion and the less happy reality he found for himself: from the pulpit he saw only ‘dullness’ of spirit, ‘licentious’ behavior, and ‘a spirit of contention’ between two long-standing political factions. After another physical and emotional collapse in the summer after his grandfather’s death in February 1729, Edwards began the attack on the complacency of sinners that would distinguish his entire career… The Faithful Narrative describes how in the winter of 1734–1735, first the young people, and then their elders, responded to Edwards’s preaching with a renewed spiritual energy and a newly virtuous repertoire of public and private behavior. Visitors observed the work of the Spirit in Northampton and took the spark home to their own congregations, thereby promoting an unprecedentedly broad regional revival. But dangers were mixed with the satisfactions: jealousies among church members, young people becoming fervent followers of their pastor without resuming deferential behavior to their parents, and scrutiny of souls leading to despair. Edwards’s own uncle committed suicide” (ANB). First published in Britain in 1737, and in Boston in 1738, Dutch and German editions would soon follow, as the work brought him international recognition. The prominent British minister George Whitefield, for example, voyaged to Northampton after the book’s publication in order to meet with Edwards. “Third Edition” stated on title page, though this is the first edition published in the American colonies; preceded by the 1737 first English edition, and possibly by the 1738 Edinburgh edition. The second work in this volume, Edwards’ Discourses on Various Important Subjects, has been bound in without the title page; the Faithful Narrative is complete. Bookplate. Short closed tear to a3 and I3 in Faithful Narrative; some foxing and faint dampstaining throughout volume. A very good copy in nicely restored contemporary calf.
• 7 • “SYMBOL OF THE FREE PRESS AS A BULWARK AGAINST TYRANNY”: VERY SCARCE SECOND ENGLISH EDITION OF TRYAL OF JOHN PETER ZENGER, 1738 07(ZENGER, John Peter). The Tryal of John Peter Zenger, of New-York, Printer, Who was lately Try’d and Acquitted for Printing and Publishing a Libel against the Government. With the Pleadings and Arguments on Both Sides. London, 1738. Quarto, period-style three-quarter brown calf and marbled boards. $16,000 Second English edition ( first published in New York in 1736) of the landmark trial of John Peter Zenger that produced “one of the famous decisions in legal history,” pivotal to “the creation of the Bill of Rights and freedom of the press… had a lasting impact on the development of a libertarian ideology in both England and America,” soundly viewed as “one of the famous decisions in legal history, establishing the epochal doctrine of the freedom of the press”—”one of the most important events of colonial times,” a splendid copy, handsomely bound. John Peter Zenger’s New York Weekly Journal often targeted Governor Cosby, prompting the official seizure and burning of four numbers of his Journal and Zenger’s arrest in 1734 for seditious libel. “Unable to meet the bail set by the court, Zenger spent eight and one-half months in jail… until he came to trial in the supreme court of the province on 4 August 1735.” Leading Zenger’s defense was Andrew Hamilton, whose “address to the jury asserted the right of the jury to determine matters of law as well as of fact and held that the truth of an utterance could be upheld as a defense against a charge of libel. Both assertions were contrary to the common law that then prevailed, but it took the jury only a few minutes of deliberation to return a verdict of innocent. Hamilton was immediately hailed as a popular hero and Zenger as a symbol of the free press as a bulwark against tyranny” (ANB). Zenger’s trial was “the most celebrated event of that day… the morning star of that liberty, which subsequently revolutionized America” (Chandler, I:157). Zenger himself first published The Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger as a folio pamphlet in 1736; it became “the most famous publication issued in America” at the time. “The narrative of this trial, which was one of the most important events of colonial times, was probably prepared by James Alexander, one of Zenger’s counsel” (Church 1016). Title page with printed: “The Second Edition”; containing “same imprint, date, and collation” as same year’s first English edition (Sabin 106307); issued same year as first Boston edition. With woodcut-engraved titlepage vignette, ornamental initial, head- and tailpiece. Title page with partial early initials. A fine copy.
• 8 • “A PROFOUND INFLUENCE ON REVOLUTIONARY IDEOLOGY”: 1755 EDITION OF TRENCHARD AND GORDON’S CATO’S LETTERS, “A CLASSIC FOR MANY AMERICANS” AND A POWERFUL INFLUENCE ON THE FOUNDING FATHERS 08(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (GORDON, Thomas) (TRENCHARD, John). Cato’s Letters: Or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, And other important Subjects. London, 1755. Four volumes. Small octavo, contemporary full brown speckled calf rebacked. $7500 1755 sixth edition of Trenchard and Gordon’s famed essays, a major influence on the American Revolution—”ranked with the treatises of Locke as the most authoritative statement on the nature of political” (Bailyn). A direct and important influence on many of the founding fathers and major writings of the American Revolution, and such seminal works as the Federalist, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. “Trenchard and Gordon were the most important disseminators of ideas to Americans in the pre-revolutionary generations” (Nash, Urban Crucible, 348). They first issued their “Cato’s Letters” in the London Journal and British Journal from November 1720 through December 1723. In these 144 essays, they developed revolutionary ideas of liberty with arguments that liberty was plagued by conspiracies of power-seekers and that executive political power and standing armies were pernicious. “It was Trenchard and Gordon who first gave unreserved endorsement to free speech as being indispensable to ‘Liberty, Property, true Religion, Arts, Sciences, Learning [and] Knowledge” (McDonald, 47). These important and influential essays “had a profound impact on Revolutionary ideology” in America (Library of Congress 3922). Issued in colonial newspapers, the Cato essays were so widely distributed, plagiarized and imitated that they “gave rise to what might be called a ‘Catonic’ image, central to the political theory of the time,” best exemplified by Washington’s public displays of virtue (Bailyn, 44). They directly influenced many of the founding fathers and the important writings of the American Revolution, including Franklin’s Silence Dogood, John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer, William Livingstone’s Independent Reflector, John Adam’s Novanglus, John Peter Zenger’s landmark defense against libel, the concept of “power” employed in The Federalist, and the popular vision of an agrarian republic. Their influence is also palpable in the rhetoric of conspiracy in the Declaration of Independence. In the course of American political development during the 18th century, Trenchard and Gordon were “the most important… spokesmen for extreme libertarianism” (Bailyn, 35). “Sixth Edition, corrected” stated on title pages. The first complete volume of Cato essays appeared soon after Trenchard’s death in December 1723, and all of the early editions are rare. Early owner ink signatures to title pages. Some mild toning and foxing to text, not affecting legibility. Expert restoration to bindings.. An extremely good and desirable copy in nicely restored contemporary calf.
• 9 • “THE RIGHT OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY TO IMPOSE SUCH A DUTY UPON HER COLONIES… CANNOT BE QUESTIONED”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF WHATELY’S REGULATIONS LATELY MADE CONCERNING THE COLONIES, 1765 09(STAMP ACT) (WHATELY, Thomas). The Regulations Lately Made concerning the Colonies, And the Taxes Imposed upon Them, considered. London, 1765. Small octavo (4-1/2 by 7-1/4 inches), modern tan paper boards; folding portfolio. $4500 First edition of the anonymously issued Regulations by secretary of the Treasury Whately—an “arch-foe” of American patriots—proclaiming Britain’s right to tax Americans in the same year’s infamous Stamp Act, also importantly drafted by Whately, here sparking colonial outrage and a key opposing work by America’s Daniel Dulany, putting the “colonies on the road to revolution.” The Stamp Act sparked “the beginning of the end of British America” (Schama, 457-8). It was Thomas Whately, trusted secretary of the Treasury under Grenville, who was given “the task of drawing up the Stamp Act” (Morgan & Morgan, Stamp Act Crisis, 240). He never deviated from his declared opinions, and consequently many Americans in London came to see him as their arch-foe” (ODNB). “Virtually all historians writing about the early stages of the American Revolution have taken note of… Regulations Lately Made Concerning the Colonies.” For with this rare and pivotal work, Whately signaled and substantiated the Stamp Act in a widely applicable, “methodical and cogent… defense of British colonial policy” (Christie, “Vision of Empire,” in English Historical Review). In Regulations Whately declared: “the Right of the Mother Country to impose such a Duty upon her Colonies, if duly considered, cannot be questioned” (104). On the issue of taxation without representation, he contended the American colonies “were ‘virtually represented in Parliament.’ This was because ‘every Member of Parliament sits in the House, not as Representatives of his own Constituents, but as one of that august Assembly by which all the Commons of Great Britain are represented’… The fact that the colonies had their own assemblies did not, according to Whately, affect Parliament’s right to levy taxes on them…" (Yirush, 226-27). Although Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, ultimately “the only way for the American colonists to solve their differences with Great Britain was to tear away from it completely. Doing that meant war” (Hayes, 166). With half title. “Despite the attribution to Grenville on the title page of the ‘Third Edition’… we know that Whately was the author” (Adams, American Controversy 65-27a). From the library of James Strohn Copley with his bookplate in the custom half morocco folding portfolio by Atmore Beach. Copley, a widely respected journalist, newspaper publisher, philanthropist and collector, was publisher of the San Diego Union, the San Diego UnionTribune and the San Diego Evening Tribune from 1947 until his death in 1973. Copley’s “astonishing collection” of some 2000 items created “a documentary survey of the American past” (New York Times). Text bright with tiny gutter-edge pinholes from original stitching, lightest scattered foxing. A handsome about-fine copy with a distinctive provenance.
• 10 • FOUNDING FATHER JOHN DICKINSON’S POWERFUL 1765 ATTACK ON THE STAMP ACT 10(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (DICKINSON, John). The Late Regulations, Respecting the British Colonies on the Continent of America Considered; in a Letter from a Gentleman in Philadelphia to His Friend in London. Philadelphia printed, London Re-printed, 1765. Octavo, period-style full sprinkled sheep gilt, red morocco spine label; pp. (1-4), 5-59, (60), 61-62. $4500 First English edition of the seminal Revolutionary work by Dickinson—”one of the leaders of the opposition to the Stamp Act”—a rare copy of his influential attack on the 1765 Stamp Act, printed in London immediately after the Philadelphia first edition “on the order of Benjamin Franklin,” who was then in London. Dickinson was “a leader of the Revolutionary movement from its inception—author of the Declaration of the Stamp Act Congress and of the Farmer’s Letters (1768), drafter if not sole author of both the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms and of the Articles of Confederation… a radical in the vital sense in which the Revolution itself was radical” (Bailyn, Pamphlets, 660-62). He was especially pivotal in crafting Late Regulations, a core work that affirms “the American Revolution began… with resistance to the Stamp Act” (Smith I: 257). Here Dickinson presents a highly sophisticated analysis of taxation, and trade between Britain and the colonies—key to his belief “that the only way to secure the repeal of the Sugar and Stamp acts was to enlist the English merchants on the American side by economic interest” (ANB). Late Regulations is seminal for its skillful, persuasive and “vivid phraseology… that would soon make Dickinson the most widely read pamphleteer in the colonies” (Bailyn, 666-67). Here Dickinson predicts that Britain’s increasing oppression of the colonies will drive them towards independence. “We are informed [that Great Britain believes the American colonists are] designing and endeavouring to render themselves independent, and therefore it may be said to be proper as much as possible to depress them… But the attempt in almost every instance from Athens down to Genoa has been unsuccessful… Evils are frequently precipitated by imprudent attempts to prevent them. In short, we never can be made an independent people, except it be by Great Britain herself; and the only way for her to do it, is to make us frugal, ingenious, united and discontented… Late measures have indeed excited an universal and unexampled grief and indignation throughout the colonies… taxes torn from her without her consent.—Her legislative assemblies, the principal pillars of her liberty, crushed into insignificance.—A formidable force established in the midst of peace, to bleed her into obedience— The sacred right of trial by jury, violated by the erection of arbitrary and unconstitutional jurisdictions—and general poverty, discontent and despondence” (54-8). Benjamin Franklin, in London when the Stamp Act went into effect in November 1765, sought to rebuff British anti-American sentiments by arranging for Dickinson’s pamphlet (published in Philadelphia in December 1765) to be immediately printed in London. With half title; without rear advertisement leaf. Text very fresh and clear, beautifully bound.
• 11 • AMERICANS, “TO COMPLETE OUR POLITICAL HAPPINESS… SHOULD VOLUNTARILY RISE UP”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF DANIEL SHUTE’S BOLD 1768 SERMON 11(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) SHUTE, Daniel, A.M. A Sermon Preached Before His Excellency Francis Bernard, Esq; Governor, His Honor Thomas Hutchinson Esq; Lieutenant-Governor, The Honourable His Majesty’s Council, and the Honourable House of Representatives, Of the Province of the Massachusets-Bay in New England, May 25th. 1768. Being the Aniversary for the Election of His Majesty’s Council for said Province. Boston: NewEngland, 1768. Small octavo, period-style full speckled calf gilt. $4000 First edition of Shute’s provocative Sermon delivered in the aftermath of the Stamp Act and other punitive British legislation, asserting the basis for “political resistance” against violation of Americans’ “natural and civil rights,” affirming historians’ view of colonial rebellion as fueled by clergy such as Reverend Shute, demonstrating “religion was a fundamental cause of the American Revolution.” Following Britain’s 1765 Stamp Act and 1766 Declaratory Act, seen as establishing “the same principle of political absolutism,” American clergy such as Congregationalist minister Daniel Shute “played an important role in shaping the public mind and provoking the response to the British that became the American Revolution” (Steward, Justifying Revolution, 52, 1). One of the era’s “strong proponents… [of] political resistance” (Steward, 69), Reverend Shute here affirms “life, liberty, and property, are the gifts of the creator,” yet also argues “the line… between one society, and another, is not drawn by heaven; nor is the particular form of civil government.” He states civil government “is not a refiguration of… natural privileges, but that method of securing them.” Shute’s principles and the persuasive eloquence of his Sermon demonstrate how “religion was a fundamental cause of the American Revolution” (Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre, xx). Shute asserts that for the colonists—”every privation of their natural rights… is subversive of their happiness.” He significantly points to how Americans, who are made subject to the laws “by civil rulers… may be morally obliged to resist them.” Speaking against a doctrine of “passive obedience and non-resistence [sic],” he declares this “came not down from above, as it can be supported neither by reason nor revelation, and therefore… may be urged with a better grace by the rulers of darkness… than by those powers that are ordained of God for the good of mankind… The welfare of the province,” he asserts, “demands the attention of the guarantees of our natural and civil rights.” Key to this is Shute’s bold claim that Americans, in order “to complete our political happiness… [exert] ourselves to aid the civil power… and instead of leaving the magistrates unaided, should voluntarily rise up for them against the evil doers” . First edition, first printing: title page with uncorrected “MDCCXLVIII” for 1768. With errata (p. 70). Tiny inkstamps not affecting text (p. 7 and 55). Text fresh with light scattered foxing.
• 12 • “THE GREATEST THREAT TO AMERICAN LIBERTIES”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF CONTINUATION OF THE PROCEEDINGS, 1770, ISSUED IN BOSTON SAME YEAR AS THE BOSTON MASSACRE, DOCUMENTING THE “CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS” 12(HUTCHINSON, Thomas) (ADAMS, John) (ADAMS, Samuel) (HANCOCK, John). A Continuation of the Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay. Boston, 1770. Slim octavo, period-style full tree calf gilt, custom slipcase. $8000 First edition of the momentous work that documents powerful legal and philosophical debates in a stand-off between Boston patriots and Hutchinson over his command to remove the Massachusetts Court from Boston amidst fury over the recent Boston Massacre, causing colonial leaders to rage against “the most valuable of our Liberties from being wrested from us,” this rare edition “almost certainly a major cause” of the Declaration of Independence “accusing the King of calling ‘together legislative bodies at place… distance from the repository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance.” On March 8, 1770, three days after the Boston Massacre, thousands of mourners attended the funerals of Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, Samuel Gray and Samuel Maverick. That same day Lt. Governor Hutchinson, who succeeded Francis Bernard as Massachusetts' royal governor, ordered the General Court to be taken from Boston and compelled to meet in Cambridge. With that, he “provoked a constitutional crisis in Massachusetts and instigated a controversy which lasted for more than two years” (Calhoon & Lord). Seen as “the most villainous, traitorous person in the land” (Bailyn, 282), to Founding Father Samuel Adams he was “a ‘pimp rather than a governor’” (Calhoon & Lord), and John Adams “considered Hutchinson to be the greatest threat to American liberties” (Webking, 80). This rare first edition of Continuation begins with Hutchinson’s July 25, 1770 speech at the opening of the Court’s Second Session. In answer, Boston’s leaders refused to conduct business in Cambridge, and authorized a report that “introduced the strongest use of natural law yet attempted by the Court” (Calhoon & Lord). The Committee’s report, primarily drafted by Samuel Adams, declares, in part: “We are obliged... to prevent the most valuable of our Liberties from being wrested from us, by the subtle Machinations and daring Encroachments of wicked Ministers... [including] Armies stationed here without our Consent; and the Streets of our Metropolis crimson’d with the Blood of our Fellow Subjects” (emphasis in original). With wood-cut engraved initial, head- and tailpiece. Evans 11733. Sabin 45695. Text quite fresh with lightest scattered foxing. Beautifully bound.
• 13 • ENGLISH LIBERTIES “HAD MORE TO DO WITH PREPARING THE MINDS OF AMERICAN COLONISTS FOR THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THAN… COKE, SIDNEY AND LOCKE”: VERY SCARCE 1774 AMERICAN EDITION 13CARE, Henry. English Liberties, or The Free-Born Subject’s Inheritance: Containing Magna Charta, Charta De Foresta… Providence, Rhode-Island, 1774. Small octavo, contemporary full brown sheep, custom clamshell box. $13,500 1774 American edition of Care’s immensely influential English Liberties, preceded only by the 1721 Boston edition, issued not long after the Boston Tea Party and the same year as the First Continental Congress, with printings of the Magna Charta, the Habeas Corpus Act (1769)—”a second Magna Charta”— and foundational texts on jury trials, “principally designed for America.” This major second American edition of English Liberties, preceded by the 1721 edition, came at a turning point in America’s path toward independence. Printed shortly after the Boston Tea Party, this appeared the same year Charles III declared: “The die is cast, the colonies must either submit or triumph,” and the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. Care saw English Liberties (1680) as giving Englishmen necessary “documents and information about the law and their rights… describing the Magna Charta as ‘Declaratory of the principal grounds of the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of England” (Morrison & Zook, 46-7). “William Penn silently lifted a sizable portion of English Liberties… into his Excellent Priviledge [sic] (1687)” (Schwoerer, 2315). Care’s “vocabulary and ideas appeared in the writings of the founding fathers… Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Dickinson and Alexander Hamilton,” and Jefferson owned two London editions of English Liberties (Schwoerer, 231-5). Benjamin Franklin was apprenticed to James Franklin when he issued the 1721 edition, and “it is quite probable that he worked on [that] edition” (Church 880); English Liberties might well have been in Franklin’s “self-improvement course” (Isaacson, 21-8). Scholars have alternatively credited William Penn with authoring substantial portions of English Liberties (see Hudson, “William Penn’s English Liberties”). “This sixth Edition being principally designed for America, a few Particulars are omitted, which were in the former Editions, such as concerning Constables, Churchwardens… But to compensate amply for these Omissions, and make the Work as truly valuable, and more serviceable in America, a Number of Excellent Forms for Justices of the Peace, &c. are added, as also some Extracts from several late celebrated writers on the British constitution” (viii). Sabin 10819. Text generally fresh with light scattered foxing, inner hinges expertly reinforced, slight rubbing to boards. A very desirable copy in contemporary sheep boards.
• 14 • EXTRAORDINARILY RARE FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, THE 1774 JOURNAL OF THE PROCEEDINGS…, ONE OF THE EARLIEST PUBLICATIONS OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT 14(CONTINENTAL CONGRESS). Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress, Held at Philadelphia, September 5, 1774. Philadelphia, 1774. Octavo, contemporary full brown calf rebacked; custom box. $65,000 First edition, first issue, of the first official journal of the Continental Congress, one of the earliest publications of the American government, “a book of the greatest rarity.” Also presenting for the first time an attempt to design a seal to “represent emblematically a united nation” in America. An excellent copy in contemporary calf with half title. In response to the Coercive or Intolerable Acts, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia from September 5 through October 26, 1774. Their objective was to compose a statement of colonial rights, identify the British government’s violation of those rights, and provide a plan that would convince Britain to restore those rights. This is the first publication of the full account of these extraordinary proceedings, published immediately after the adjournment of Congress. “On that same busy day after Congress’ adjournment, October 27… [the Bradfords] issued what is today a book of the greatest rarity, Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress” (Powell, Books of a New Nation, 45). Foremost in the proceedings was the “Declaration of Rights,” including: “life, liberty, and property”; the rights and liberties granted to English citizens; representation and participation in legislation and government, especially in issues of taxation and internal policy; trial by jury; and “a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the King,” etc. These important rights and liberties were the defining issues of the revolution and became the foundation of the Declaration of Independence. This first issue is quite rare. The second (and more common) issue of the Journal contains two additional documents, General Gage’s letter and the Petition to the King, which were separately printed by the Bradfords early in 1775. Howes J263. Evans 13737. Small perforated stamp of Library of Congress on title page, marked duplicate on verso. Contemporary owner inscription on half title. Only occasional light foxing and embrowning. A bit of expert restoration to corners of handsome contemporary calf. A most desirable copy of an American Revolutionary landmark of the utmost rarity and importance.
• 15 • “THAT THESE AMERICAN STATES MAY NEVER CEASE TO BE FREE”: FIRST EDITION OF A 1776 ORATION—A REMARKABLE “LONDON FORGERY” 15(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) ADAMS, Samuel. An Oration Delivered at the State-House, in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Printed; London, Re-printed for, 1776. Slim octavo, contemporary three-quarter red morocco and marbled boards. $6750 First edition of a fascinating Revolutionary work of deliberate political misdirection, misattributed to Samuel Adams, firebrand of the Boston Tea Party, published in the wake of the Declaration “to show that the colonies were bent on independence,” issued in London despite the imprint of a fictional Philadelphia printing. This first edition of a 1776 Revolutionary War pamphlet, with its forged misattribution to Samuel Adams and issued in the wake of the Declaration of Independence, is an intriguing example of a key turning point in political rhetoric. It stands out from similar strategies of misdirection—even at a time when there was a rise in “the volume of propaganda emitted during the years 1763 to 1776, much of it pseudonymous and anonymous” (Alden, 530). As such this is an exemplary work of calculated political misdirection. Even in the 1800s, questions lingered about this London printing of An Oration, said to be delivered by Samuel Adams on August 1, 1776, in Philadelphia. There would have been no immediate reason to doubt his authorship, given Adams’ stature and evidence that “the British kept close watch on his activities” (Stoll, Samuel Adams, 185). As rumors continued to circulate, Adams’ grandson, Samuel Adams Wells, wrote to Thomas Jefferson for clarification—for Jefferson himself had once “emphatically attested that, if there was a helmsman of the American Revolution, ‘Samuel Adams was the man’” (Alexander, Samuel Adams, 156). “Of this Oration (never delivered), there was no Philadelphia edition (in spite of its being indicated by title-page); it was, in fact a London forgery designed to show that the colonies were bent on independence” (Howes A72). The misattribution to Samuel Adams indicates he was viewed as “the single most important individual in establishing the Revolution’s public voice” (Bradley, xiv-xv). The still-anonymous author of the Oration, clearly versed in revolutionary rhetoric, “extols the merits of the newly independent colonies, but overtones suggest that it was actually written in England. W.V. Wells, in his Life… of Samuel Adams, points out that this is spurious. None of the recent writers who have dealt with Samuel Adams have included this among his writings’ (Adams 76-106a). First edition: “There is no Philadelphia edition” (Sabin 344). Without scarce half title. Adams 76-106a. Howes A72. ESTC T83257. Preliminary blank with bibliographic marginalia in an unidentified hand. One page with small bit of early marginalia and several words underlined. Text very fresh and clear, minor rubbing to board edges.
• 16 • RARE FIRST EDITION OF REVOLUTIONARY MINISTER SAMUEL WEBSTER’S MAY 28, 1777 SERMON 16(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) WEBSTER, Samuel, A.M. A Sermon Preached before the Honorable Council, and the Honorable House of Representatives, of the State of the Massachusetts-Bay, in New England. At Boston, May 28, 1777. Being the Anniversary for the Election of the Honorable Council. Boston, 1777. Octavo, modern full calf gilt. $4800 First edition of Webster’s electrifying 1777 Sermon delivered barely ten months after America’s Declaration of Independence, invoking God’s wrath to put the British “to flight speedily… make them quake with fear… and so return to their own lands… let them have neither credit nor courage, to come out any more against us.” When Samuel Webster delivered this crucial 1777 election sermon before the Massachusetts-Bay Council and House of Representatives, “independence had been proclaimed, not secured. The bloodletting had just begun.” That same year Thomas Paine, in an public letter to Admiral Howe, warned him: “In all the wars which you have formerly been concerned in, you had only armies to contend with. In this case, you have both an army and a country to combat” (Atkinson, British Are Coming, 561-64). Mindful of his audience and the peril of the moment, Webster, a minister in Salisbury, Massachusetts, aimed “biting sarcasm” at the British, and made “solemn appeals to the representatives of the people to be true to their trust” (Headley, Chaplains and Clergy, 3). “From colonial times it was the custom of certain of the New England states to open each year’s session of the legislature with an annual election sermon” (Vail, Checklist). Drawing extensively on biblical sources, these sermons focus on the “nature, purpose and character of government” and the “character of a good ruler” (Cline, New England Election Sermons, 5-10). Here Webster, a Harvard graduate with a 1749 AM, firmly proclaims: “conquests made by force upon an inoffensive people… gives no right… the business of all in power is to defend the lives, liberties and property of the people… and where there is any dispute, let nothing be done, till it is settled by the people, who are the fountain of power.” Webster directs his fiery eloquence at “our furious brethren the Britons… who have begun the most desperate attacks on us.” He calls on God to “put them to flight speedily… as the fire consumes the wood, and sometimes lays waste whole forests on the mountains, so let them be laid waste and consumed, if they obstinately persist in their bloody designs against us.” In his concluding words, Webster calls for “a dreadful tempest to affright them… make them quake with fear; and pursue them with thine arrows, till they are either destroyed, or brought to see that God is with us of a truth and fighteth for us, and so return to their own lands, covered with shame and confusion… let them have neither credit nor courage, to come out any more against us” (emphasis in original). First edition. With half title. Evans 15703. ESTC W3240. Vail, 21. Sabin 10423. Small numerical notation above half title. Text fresh with mere trace of scattered foxing.
• 17 • “THE OFFICIAL WHISTLE-BLOWER OF THE HORRORS OF TRANSATLANTIC SLAVERY”: EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF THOMAS CLARKSON’S FIRST WORK, ESSAY ON THE SLAVERY AND COMMERCE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES, 1786 17(CLARKSON, Thomas). An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African…. With Additions. London, Printed: Philadelphia, 1786. Octavo, period-style full brown speckled calf gilt, red morocco spine label. $4500 First American edition of Clarkson’s extremely scarce first published work, preceded by the same year’s first English edition, his “famous prize essay”” on the abolition of slavery,” igniting the campaign “for one of the fundamental rights of man” (PMM 232). In 1770s England, as “rebellious Americans were severing ties with their former British motherland… a strenuous battle occurred that spawned the noble civil- and human-rights fight that eventually ended Britain’s participation in the African slave trade.” With this Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Thomas Clarkson “became the official whistle-blower of the horrors of transatlantic slavery… the driving force behind the abolition of African slavery and the slave trade” (Smith, Thomas Clarkson, 17). Clarkson’s “famous prize essay… was the prelude to parliamentary action” on the abolition of slavery. Clarkson, together with William Wilberforce, led the “campaign, carried on by word of mouth and by means of the printing press, for one of the fundamental rights of man” (PMM 232). Clarkson had been completing his studies at Cambridge when he entered an essay competition, and came across an “advertisement for Benezet’s Historical Account of Guinea. He was profoundly struck by the title and… ‘hastened to London to buy it’…. Overwhelmed by the horror and brutality of transatlantic slavery, his goal of merely winning the prize for its own sake,” shifted to creating a work of wider impact. On winning the 1785 Cambridge prize, Clarkson translated the essay, his Latin dissertation, into English for publication. He documents the long history of slavery, the devastating Middle Passage and the inhumanity of slavery in the colonies. Clarkson is renowned as “the man who spawned the British Abolitionist Movement and the first Briton to devote his entire adult life to ending African slavery… the moral conscience of American slavery proponents well into the 19th century” (Smith, 9-30, 43). “He never ceased to work for anti-slavery, lending his pen and his prestige particularly to the cause of abolition in the United States” (DNB). Leaf of publisher’s advertisement at rear. Evans 19561. Sabin 13484. ESTC W32021. See Goldsmiths’ 13279; Kress B1026. Early gift inscription to title page. Institutional inkstamp to title page. Text generally fresh with only light occasional edge-wear. A scarce near-fine copy, beautifully bound.
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