[Rarebooks] fa: EARLY PRINTING OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION in 1787 Gentleman's Magazine

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 17. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/mnokg2h

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle. Volume LVII [57]. For the Year MDCCLXXXVII [1787]. Part the Second. London: Printed by John Nichols, for D. Henry, 1787. Six monthly issues (July-December), plus supplement, volume title, indices and preface. Tall 8vo (23 cm), untrimmed, in early/period marbled boards, sympathetically rebacked in modern sheepskin with raised bands; [2], 553-1200, [16] pp.; with 14 copper-engraved plates, three of which are folding (complete).

With an early printing (perhaps the first outside of America) of the complete CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, printed in its entirety over two monthly issues (Nov.-Dec.), along with the introductory letter from George Washington, as President of the Federal Convention, to the President of Congress. It was while John Adams was posted in London that he first read the complete text of the Constitution, possibly in the pages of this very magazine, and subsequently communicated his concerns to Thomas Jefferson in Paris over the document's lack of a bill of rights (“What think you of a Declaration of Rights? Should not a Thing have preceded the Model?”).

This issue boasts several other significant articles of American interest, including: "The Morals of Chess," by Dr. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, of Philadelphia (along with a review of the book later in the same July issue); an account of the PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, of which Franklin was the president, which includes "the introduction to what is called 'their Constitution'" and the text of a "memorial lately presented to the convention of the United States" by the Society's vice president, Jonathan Penrose; as well as semi-monthly reports and dispatches under the heading, Intelligence from the East and West Indies, and from America, etc. ("The Congress have it in contemplation to send some vessels of force into the European seas, particularly into the Mediterranean, to protect the trade of the United States…"; "Sconetoyak, a celebrated War Captain, and son to one of the principal Chiefs… will leave this place [Philadelphia] in a few days for New York, to represent to Congress some grievances, and to demand an observance of the treaty of Hopewell, on the Keowu, which… has been violated and infringed by the lawless and unruly Whites on the frontiers…"); etc.

The PLATES include a folding Plan of an antient Camp at Knaptoft in Leicestershire; views of Kenilworth Church (folding), Hawkherst Church, and Aconbury Chapel; Portrait of a learned Youth at Oxford, supposed to be Milton; an Antient Painting on Glass (folding); the Parliament House, Post Office and New Church in Dublin; tomb inscriptions, urns, manuscript facsimiles, Roman artifacts, etc., and a plate of coins and tokens which includes an "American Coin of New Jersey State, 1786." Boards rubbed and bumped at the corners; mild even toning to the leaves with some wear and darkening to the untrimmed edges, occasional light spotting to the text and plates, else quite clean and sound, and firmly bound in a handsome new leather spine. Front paste-down with the engraved armorial bookplate of J. Comyns, Wood [Devon].