[Rarebooks] fa: TRAVELS OF NATHANIEL SNIP, A METHODIST TEACHER - Rare, “Infamous” Parody - 1761

[ArCh]

Auction ends Sunday, November 5. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/mpfur25k

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

"Nathaniel Snip" (pseud.): A Journal of the Travels of Nathaniel Snip, a Methodist Teacher of the Word. Containing an Account of the many Marvellous Adventures which befel him in his Way from the Town of Kingston upon Hull to the City of York. London: Printed for W. Bristow, and M. Cooper, 1761. First (and only) edition. Slim 8vo (18.5 cm), stitch-bound in early/original blue wraps; [3]-32 pp. (possibly lacking a half-title page); woodcut decorations. ESTC N51474.

An "infamous" lampoon of Methodism in the form of a scurrilous and bawdy parody of the journals of John Wesley and George Whitefield. This book is number 324 in the bibliography of "Anti-Methodist Publications Issued during the Eighteenth Century" compiled by the Rev. Richard Green (London: 1902), where it is described as a "poor, vile, filthy thing, designed to pour ridicule upon Methodism." For his part, in his Life of the Rev. George Whitefield (New York: 1877), Luke Tyerman consigns it to a section on "Disgraceful Publications" and describes it as "an infamous production, full of burlesque and banter." An early owner of this copy has helpfully highlighted some of the juicier bits, under one of which he has written, "What blasphemy!"

Exceedingly uncommon: ESTC locates only two copies in the UK (Edinburgh University, York Minster) and two in the U.S. (Harvard, Yale). The wraps with some soiling and chipping to the edges and spine; the contents with toning and spotting, old paper repairs to the first five leaves (one obscuring a woodcut tail-piece at the foot of the preface leaf), a few early ink underlinings as noted above, else sound. Curiously, the title-page of Wenceslaus Hollar's Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus or The Severall Habits of English Women (ca. 1640) has been used as a backing for the paper wraps.