[Rarebooks] fa: 1812 Gentleman's Magazine: PERCEVAL ASSASSINATION - RUNIC CALENDAR - "STEAM KITCHEN" - &c.

[ArCh]

Auctions end Sunday, January 21. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/2vt3s47f

Many thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


The Gentleman's Magazine: and Historical Chronicle. From January to June, 1812. Volume LXXXII [82]. Part the First. London: Printed by John Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1812. Six monthly issues (Jan.-June), plus the volume title, preface, supplement, and index. Thick 8vo (22 cm) in early/period calf-backed marbled boards, gilt-lettered morocco spine labels; iv + 700 pp.; with in-text woodcuts and 15 copper-engraved plates (complete).

The PLATES (with accompanying text) include: Slater's Patent Cooking Apparatus (a "steam kitchen"); Runic Almanac used in the Isle of Oesel [Saarema, Estonia]; A Branch of the Upas Tree; Ludicrous Figure of a Man with the Head of a Pig, in the College at Winchester; Statue to the Memory of Admiral Lord Nelson, at Birmingham; Elevation of the Tower and Spire of the Church of Witherley; views of Rievaulx Abbey, Halnaker House, Churches at Alberbury, Stoney Stanton, Ivinghoe, Flamsted; a woodcut portrait of John Bellingham, the Assassin; plus more views, miscellaneous antiquities, curiosities, medals, fossils, inscriptions, autographs, etc.

Other notable, curious and/or characteristic features, topics and essays include:
	- Extensive contemporary coverage of the Napoleonic Wars and events leading up to the War of 1812.
	- The Trial and Execution of John Bellingham (for the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval); plus Memoirs of John Bellingham, the Assassin.
	- [John] Slater's Patent Cooking Apparatus described ("unquestionably the most delicate, cleanly, and cheapest method of cooking now practiced").
	- Description of a Runic Almanac [calendar] used in the Isle of Oesel [Saarema, Estonia] ("herewith... a fac-simile of one of these rude almanacs... together with such explanations as could be collected from a rather intelligent boor [i.e., peasant]...").
	- Naval Intelligence; Melancholy Shipwrecks; Naval Heroism; etc.
	- Account of the Successful Intrepidity of a British Sailor.
	- Report on the State of His Majesty's Health (re. King George III: "Dr. Simmons thinks His Majesty's bodily health very good—his mental health much deranged—his recovery improbable...").
	- A Series of Letters on Acoustics, addressed to Mr. Isaac Alexander, Teacher of the Piano-Forte. Letters I-V.
	- A lengthy (favorable) review of Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
	- Increased Symptoms of the Bibliomania; Style of Dibdin's "Bibliomania" defended; etc.
	- Remarkable Letter from a Highwayman; Bill filed by a Highwayman in the Exchequer against one of his Partners.
	- The Propriety of Evening Lectures asserted.
	- Obituaries, with Anecdotes, of remarkable Persons, including: Prime Minister Spencer Perceval; philologist and radical politician John Horne Tooke; literary critic and Shakespeare scholar Edmond Malone; Dutch diplomat and Japanologist Isaac Titisingh; Irish dramatist Andrew Cherry; Lieut. Wm. Smith, "at Gallegos, of a wound received in the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo"; etc., etc.
	- Plus foreign and domestic news, monthly meteorological tables, parliamentary debates, poetry, Prices of Stocks and Goods, Accounts of Theatrical Performances, Reviews and Extracts of Books recently published; and much, much more.
Binding with fairly modest rubbing and edge-wear; various degrees of offsetting/browning to and from many of the plates; otherwise the contents are generally very clean and fresh, firmly bound.