[Rarebooks] fa: 1775 Gentleman's Magazine: LEXINGTON & CONCORD + BUNKER HILL + 3 MAPS of BOSTON, &c.

[ArCh]

Auction ending Sunday, October 16. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/37k9kk5p

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle. Volume XLV [45]. For the Year MDCCLXXV [1775]. London: Printed at St. John's Gate, for D. Henry, [1775]. Twelve monthly issues (Jan.-Dec.), plus the supplement, volume title, indices and preface. Thick 8vo in early/period calf-backed marbled boards, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; [4] + 639 + [13] pp.; with numerous in-text charts and tables, woodcut diagrams and illustrations, plus 16 copper-engraved plates and maps, eight of which are folding (complete).

With three engraved folding MAPS OF BOSTON and environs:
	- A Plan of the Town and Chart of the Harbour of Boston, Exhibiting a View of the Islands, Castles Forts and Entrances into the said Harbour… done from an actual Survey, never before made public.
	- A Map of the Country 100 Miles round Boston… in order to shew the Situation and March of the troops, as well as Provincials… which are now within Sight of each other, and are hourly expected to engage (with Lexington, Concord, etc., shown).
	- A New and Correct Plan of the Town of Boston.

This volume also contains extensive and vivid contemporary coverage of the early events of the AMERICAN REVOLUTION, including:
	- Authentic Account of an Engagement, on the 19th of April, between a Party of Gen. Gage's Troops and the Militia of Massachusetts-Bay (one of the earliest accounts printed in Britain of the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord and "the shot heard round the world," generally considered the beginning of the American War of Independence).
	- Description of the town of Boston.
	- Authentic Account of the Skirmish at Concord [and] Authentic Account of the Battle near Boston.
	- Insurrection at New York.
	- Resolutions of the Virginia Congress.
	- Ticonderoga Taken by the Americans [and] Journal of the Party sent to secure Ticonderoga.
	- Provincial Account of the Action at Charlestown (Battle of Bunker Hill).
	- Plan of the Redoubt and Fortifications on Bunker's Hill, attacked and carried by the King's Troops on June 17 (woodcut illustration).
	- Genuine Copy of the Petition from the American Congress to the King.
	- Substance of the Address of the American Congress to the People of Quebec.
	- Resolutions of Congress on the conciliating Proposition of Parliament. (The complete text of the Continental Congress's famous response to the so-called "Conciliatory Resolution." Though signed here with John Hancock's name, it was in fact written by a committee comprised of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Richard Henry Lee — the same committee that would draft the Declaration of Independence — with the lion's share of the authorship attributed to Jefferson.)
	- Contents of American Correspondence (including Gen. Gage's Letters from his Arrival at Boston in Quality of Governor, to 26 Jan. 1775, and letters from the governors of New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, etc.)
	- Intercepted Letter from Benjamin Harrison, one of the delegates to the Continental Congress, to Gen. Washington.
	- Three Letters from Gen. Washington's Aid-de-camp to his friend in Philadelphia.
	- Declaration of the Continental Congress, in Justification of their taking up Arms.
	- Final Answer of the Continental Congress to Lord North's conciliatory Proposition.
	- Address of the Mayor, Burgesses, Clergy, and Freeholders of Bristol, in Abhorrence of the unnatural Rebellion in America.
	- Letter to John Wesley on his Address to the Americans.
	- Origins of Tarring and Feathering.
	- Plan of the American Confederacy to form an independent State.
	- Mr. [Edmund] Burke's propositions for reconciling the differences between Great Britain and America.
	- Monthly accounts of the Proceedings of the American Colonists since the passing of the Boston Port Bill (with dispatches and reports from Boston, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, New York, etc.).
	- Monthly summaries of Parliamentary Debates regarding the Colonies.
	- Etc., etc.

Other features of note include:
	- Two items on SAMUEL JOHNSON: a review of, and commentary on, Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Isles (multi-part), as well as a plate showing an uncharacteristically slim Dr. Johnson's introduction to a Highland Hut.
	- The famous John Hutchinson's Attempt to discover LONGITUDE [and] Extracts from Spearman's Life of that Mechanic [and] Extracts from Atkyns's Voyage relative to the same Subject
	- Account of THE RIVALS, a new Comedy (a lengthy review and synopsis of the play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, with excerpts).
	- Five folding MAPS OF THE ROAD(S) FROM LONDON to Norwich, Barnstaple, Shrewsbury, etc.
	- Authentic Account of the cruel Murder of Mr. Power, by the White-Boys, in Ireland.
	- Three plates depicting "curiosities" discovered at HERCULANEUM.
	- A plate showing A Phaenomenon of the Sun, as it appeared at Bexley, in Kent, April 27, 1775.
	- A plate showing WINGFIELD CASTLE, in Suffolk.
	- Two "miscellaneous plates" depicting assorted antiquities, the Calculus found in the stomach of a Horse, and a Mermaid exhibited in London 1775.
	- Plus monthly Prices of Stocks and Goods, theatre and book reviews, Bills of Mortality, Obituaries, listing of Bankrupts; newspaper extracts; and much more.

Binding with fairly modest rubbing and wear, cracking to the rear joint but the board is secure; contents toned with intermittent browning and offsetting to and from the text leaves and some of the plates, occasionally rather pronounced, closed edge tear to one leaf (p. 81-2), else clean and sound, firmly bound.