NEAL'S 1720 HISTORY OF NEW-ENGLAND, FIRST EDITION, WITH FOLDING MAP

(NEW ENGLAND) NEAL, Daniel. The History of New-England Containing an Impartial Account of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs Of the Country To the Year of our Lord, 1700. To which is added The Present State of New-England. With a New and Accurate Map of the Country. London: Printed for J. Clark, 1720. Two volumes. Octavo, 19th-century three-quarter green morocco, raised bands, marbled boards and endpapers. $6200.

First edition of Neal's History of New-England, an account of the sufferings of the Puritans in England and their establishment of American settlements. With a splendid engraved folding map of the region.

A minister and historian of the Puritans, Daniel Neal published The History of New-England, his first work, in 1720. "The favorable impression produced by the volume in America led to his receiving in the following year, from the university of Harvard, an honorary degree" (DNB). "The history itself contains a variety of materials for the reader's instruction and entertainment; as, the conjectures of learned men concerning the first peopling of America, the customs and manners of the Indians, their wars with the English, and the attempts that have been made… for their conversion… the mistakes which the government of New-England fell into, with relation to the Quakers and Anabaptists, as well as their late severities towards those who suffered for suspected witchcrafts and sorceries" (from the Preface). The latter includes a censure of Cotton Mather's credulous account of the Salem witch trials in his Magnalia, upon which this history is otherwise largely based. Title pages printed in red and black. Sabin 52140. Howes N26. Bookplate.

Text clean, map fine, binding a bit rubbed. An extremely good copy.