[Rarebooks] fa: OWEN FELLTHAM - RESOLVES: DIVINE, MORAL, POLITICAL - Folio/Paneled Calf 1696

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 17. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/w5lhoul

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Owen Felltham [sometimes Feltham]: Resolves: Divine, Moral, Political. With several New Additions both in Prose and Verse, not Extant in the former Impressions. In this Eleventh Edition, References are made to the Poetical Citations, heretofore much wanted. London: Printed by M. Clark, for Charles Harper, at the Flower-de-luce over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street, MDCXCVI [1696]. Folio (30.5 cm) in later Cambridge-style paneled calf with gilt-tooled fillets and fleurons, rebacked with the original spine laid down, marbled endpapers, all page edges gilt; [12], 327, [1], 84 pp.; with an extra engraved title-page and explanation leaf ("The face of the book unmasked"). ESTC R3420; Wing F658.

Bound, as issued, with Lusoria: or Occasional Pieces. With a Tast [sic] of some Letters, and a brief Character of the Low-Countries, with a separate title-page and pagination. Binding with some scuffs, rubbing, and edge-wear; contents with intermittent mild toning, faint damp-stain to the edges of a few leaves, a few small scattered spots; otherwise very clean, crisp and sound, firmly bound. A superior copy in a handsome binding by Henry Young & Sons, Liverpool.

Aphoristic commentaries on matters spiritual, ethical and political, first published ca. 1620 when the author was only eighteen years old. Owen Felltham (1602-1668) continued to expand and revise his "resolves" until his death, and they proved enduringly popular throughout the century. Fairly enlightened and tolerant for his time, Felltham has even been described as something of a proto-feminist ("Whence proceed the most abhorred villainies but from a masculine unblushing impudence?... When a Woman grows bold and daring, we dislike her, and say, 'she is too like a Man': yet in our selves, we magnify what we condemn. Is not this injustice?" ). Other subjects include: Of Poets and Poetry ("Surely he was a little wanton with his leisure, that first invented Poetry..."); Of Idle Books; Of the Temper of Affections; Of God and the Air; Of Dissimulation; Of Superstition; Of Play and Gaming; Of Dancing; etc., etc.