A scarce book: Via OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 we trace only six copies in U.S. institutions!

•  NSTC K23. Recent neat green cloth, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Some pages with very faint foxing. A decidedly nice copy.

Provenance: Front pastedown with bookplate “De la bibliotheque de F. Freudenreich.”

•  ESTC T48434; Alston, III, 308; Goldsmiths’-Kress 11089; Sabin 32702. Contemporary speckled calf, neatly rebacked preserving original gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels, spines with gilt-stamped thistle decorations; edges and corners rubbed, sides showing small scrapes and discolorations. Residue on pastedowns from sometime removal of bookplates. Pages age-toned, with occasional small spots, and offsetting from binding to in margins of first and last few leaves. All edges speckled.

As described by the title-pages, the volumes are “Illustrated by upwards of three hundred engravings, from sketches by the author. The steel plates executed [by J. Hamilton and others] under the superintendence of J.M. Butler, the wood engravings by Van Ingen & Snyder.” The plates total 20 altogether, including frontispieces.

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The characters used to print this work were the invention of Father Christian Leclercq, a 17th-century missionary, and later revised and improved by Abbé Pierre Maillard. More than 5700 types were cut and cast for the book, and the characters each represent words rather than sounds. This may well be the sole work printed in these characters.

This issue without English language front matter (i.e., pp. i–xii).

•  Pilling, Algonquian, p. 275 (ref).   Publisher's yellow-brown cloth with simply gilt-lettered spine, to which one stain and general light soiling; each cover creased vertically from an old bump. All edges red. Internally clean.  (25312)

The Tropologia was first printed in 1681, and went through several editions; Lowndes and Allibone both identify this present one as the best of the old issues. Allibone notes how rare it had become by mid-19th-century, and also cites De Coetlogn, who called the work “A most valuable treasure of human composition: a book without which no Christian Minister's Library can be complete.”

•  ESTC T194778; Lowndes 1254; Allibone 1008.   Contemporary treed sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and old paper shelving label; covers scuffed and abraded, minor cracks to spine leather, front joints starting from the weight of the substantial volume. Front free endpaper with early inked presentation inscription: “Presented to the N.Y. Bap. Ed. Socty. by Lewis Leonard, Poughkeepsie.” One leaf with closed tear to center, no loss of text. Pages gently age-toned, with occasional light foxing.  (24895)

•  ESTC T75210. Marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Half-title lacking. Upper margin of title-page showing small abrasions and traces of affixed paper; title-page and several others stamped by a now-defunct institution.

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A later issue of the first edition, with a different title-page but printed from the same stereotype plates as the first edition, which was published in Cincinnati in 1871.

Provenance:  “Presented by / D. Johnstone to his / son Washington. / Brantford Setp. 12 '77.”

•  Howes K62; Newberry Library, Indian Captivities, 170; Graff 2296.   Publisher's blue cloth, salmon endpapers, title in gilt on spine with top and bottom of spine pulled; blind-stamped image of an Indian within borders on each cover, covers spotted. Interior clean and with remarkably little foxing; indeed, this appears only (and minimally) to the frontispiece.  (25972)

•  Very good; board edges, corners, and spine extremities showing light wear, spine slightly dimmed. (1957)

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•  Flake & Draper 4586.   Publisher's green cloth, spine chipped and darkened at head and foot and with incision across center. Interior clean; pp. 41–54 detaching. Ex-library, with white-lettered call number on spine; pressure-stamps on title-page; bookplate, charge card, and pocket on pastedowns, rubber-stamp and librarian's penciled annotation in margin of p. [iii]; and two small crayon check-marks within text. Rear free endpaper chipped/abraded where something (a date slip?) was sometime removed. Faults not all as distressing as they sound; good +.  (24430)

•  Stiff printed wrappers, center bit of top edge a trifle bumped. Near fine. (23499)

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Provenance:  “Caledonian United Service Club” inscribed at top of title-page.

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Rare: No copies were traced via OCLC or COPAC.

•  Not in NSTC.   Removed from a nonce volume. Lightly age-toned with some light soiling. Inked notations in top margin of title-page.  (11255)

•  Very good, in publisher's cloth. Front free endpaper torn out. Preliminary pages with a few light creases in fore-margins probably created from paper clips being fastened to them at one time.  (10711)

•  Stewart 94. Publisher's wrappers, front wrapper lacking, back wrapper torn and chipped. Publisher's slip detached (torn away, affecting four letters) but present. First and last few leaves lightly foxed. (13989)

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Knight, who was devoted to books and to literature from the time he was a small child, was a much-admired printer and publisher, as well as an author, reformer, and would-be educator: Many of his publishing endeavors were aimed at improving and enlightening the working class.

•  NSTC 2K7731. On Knight, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. On binding cloth, see: Krupp, Bookcloth, style Wav3.   Publisher's textured brown cloth, covers blind-stamped with muse motif and title, spines with gilt-stamped title and blind-stamped decorations; lightly worn overall with some fading, vol. II spine head with traces of a strip of cloth tape. Ex–social club library: 19th-century bookplate, call number on endpaper, pressure-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Paper slightly embrittled (more so in second volume), with a few short edge tears. Externally ordinary; internally worthwhile.  (26860)

•  Contemporary publisher’s mottled sheep; spine gilt extra. Fine abrasions or chipping to leather, especially to head and foot of spine. Offsetting from turn-ins; lightly foxed throughout. A closed tear without loss in pp. 327–28. All edges marbled.

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•  Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped red leather title-label (a little darkened). Three leaves with offsetting from now-absent laid-in item. Some upper corners bumped; one leaf with repairs to inner margin, touching but not obscuring text. Endpapers and some edges with a little soiling; generally, quite clean.  (25365)

This edition opens with a copper-engraved added title-page signed by J. Padebrugge; the main title-page bears the Elzevir sphere mark. Willems notes that it is “une copie exacte et ligne pour ligne de celle [the Elzevir edition] de 1672, dont en effect Moetjens s'était rendu adjudicataire, mais c'est positivement une réimpression.” It is, in effect, aline-for-line piracy, and a handsome one faithful to its original's good qualities.

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 locate only eight U.S. holdings.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of collector Robert J. Hayhurst.

•  Brunet, III, 1309; Willems 1472.   Contemporary vellum, spine with early inked title; vellum remarkably clean. Original blue silk place marker present and intact. Front free endpaper with upper outer corner excised, mostly removing an early inked ownership inscription; title-page with early inked inscriptions lined through; back free endpaper with recent pencilled purchase record. One leaf with short tear from outer margin, just touching text without loss. Pages clean. A nice book.  (25561)