[Rarebooks] fa: WILLIAM WOLLASTON - THE RELIGION OF NATURE DELINEATED - 1724

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 7. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/y7vp8rhy

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[William Wollaston:] The Religion of Nature Delineated. London: Re-printed in the Year 1724. by Sam. Palmer; and Sold by Bernard Lintott, at the Cross Keys between the Temple Gates; J. Osborn, at the Oxford-Arms in Lombard-Street; and W. and J. Innys, at the west-end of St. Pauls [1724]. Quarto (24 cm) in early/period full calf tooled in blind; 218 pp.; engraved vignettes and initials. ESTC T71037.

The first trade edition of this important and influential work of moral philosophy. According to the author's prefatory advertisement, a privately printed edition of "a few copies" was issued in 1722, "but, it being transcribed for the press hastily and under great disadvantages, many errata and mistakes got into it." A popular work, The Religion of Nature Delineated went through some fifteen printings before the end of he century and had a profound influence on both British Deism and American Practical Idealism. Benjamin Franklin describes in his Autobiography how, as a young journeyman printer in London, he worked as a compositor on the publisher's subsequent (third) edition of the book in 1725 and was so taken with its arguments that he published a response in that same year, A Dissertation on Liberty (which he subsequently did his best to suppress). Franklin carried Wollaston's concept of "the pursuit of happiness" with him for the next fifty years, to the framing of the Declaration of Independence. Fittingly, the title-page bears an engraved vignette of a printing press.

Bound without the index, as is often the case (see Library of Congress's copy, etc.). Binding with wear to the spine foot, bumping to the  corners, front joint cracked but the board is secure; occasional light spotting and damp-staining to the margins, most noticeable in the early leaves, otherwise the contents are very clean and bright, firmly bound. A nice fresh copy.