[Rarebooks] fa: ATHENIAN MERCURY 1691 - 29 ISSUES re. William & Mary, Dueling, Prostitution, &c.

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 15. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/nuchndx

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

The Athenian Mercury. Volume 3, Number 1 [through] Number 29. London: Printed by John Dunton, 1691. Twenty-nine separate issues, each a single folio sheet measuring 32.5 x 19.5 cm (ca. 12 3/4 x 7 3/4 in.), printed on both sides. Light edge-wear, small stab-holes to the left margins; browning to several issues, lighter toning to the rest, with some intermittent spotting; one issue with early ink doodle/squiggle to the top margin.

A run of 29 consecutive issues; nearly a complete run of vol. III of the newspaper, lacking only the last issue, no. 30. Included is the volume title and prefatory matter (8 pp.) which contains a list of the volume's contents. The best-known and longest-lived of all seventeenth-century literary periodicals, The Athenian Mercury was a widely-read staple of the coffee houses. The first advice column and the first newspaper to use the question-and-answer format, it is also generally considered the first major popular periodical in England as well as the first miscellaneous periodical, and the first to appeal to both men and women. Published twice weekly from 1691-1697 by the eccentric pamphleteer and prolific publisher John Dunton, the Athenian Mercury took its name from Acts 17:21 ("For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing"). Over the course of its 580 numbers, Dunton and his two principal writers, Richard Sault and Samuel Wesley (father of Charles and John Wesley), answered nearly 6000 questions, both weighty and frivolous, on a dizzying array of topics, including theology, philosophy, politics, health, natural history, science, literature, courtship and marriage, sex, etiquette, etc., etc.

Topics covered in these issues include theology ("What Image ought we to form of God in our Minds..?"); William and Mary and their call for a General Reformation of Manners; dueling ("how far may a Person of Honour refuse a challenge?"); post-mortem erections; prostitutes ("what are the best methods to detect the vile haunts and practices of those Lewd Women called Night-walkers?"); love and courtship; marriage ("Whether a Person made Drunk, so that he is incapable to return pertinent Answers to the Minister… can at such time be said to be married?"); polygamy; ornithology ("Why should a Tom-Tit, being the least of Birds, generally have more young ones than another?"); etc., etc., etc.