[Rarebooks] Beauties of Chesterfield, Boston 1801

[Powers Rare Books]

I can offer...

      [CHESTERFIELD].  The Man of Education: or, Beauties of Lord 
Chesterfield, Being Selections from that Author, of Pieces the most 
Valuable and Unexceptionable, on Education, Manners, and the General 
Conduct of Life.  Boston: Printed for Joseph Bumstead, 1801.  $350
      Styled the First American Edition on the title-page, with a nice 
frontispiece portrait engraved by Samuel Hill.  12mo, original full 
sheep, gilt ruled bands on a flat spine with dark brown lettering 
label.  300 pp.  The spine ends are chipped and the joints are just 
starting, otherwise a very good copy.
      Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son were first published in 
1774, and the novelty of the genre and their elegant style made them a 
popular target for adaptation and imitation.  English versions began 
just a few years after the original, but this 1801 edition seems to be 
the earliest American edition published.
      This copy also bears the bookplate of the Shakspeare Circulating 
Library of Boston, with a list of their rules.  Charles Dexter Allen 
(no. 93) describes an example of their bookplate with "a very curious 
old woodcut, with a large oval medallion of the famous writer for whom 
the library was named," but this is a simpler (and therefore presumably 
earlier) version.  And more mysteriously, an early owner has written on 
the rear pastedown: "Caramon seeds."

$350 plus shipping.

For images visit http://home.comcast.net/~powersrarebooks/ManEduc.htm
Cheers,
Greg Powers
Powers Rare Books