About this Item
12mo, 164 x 92 mms., pp. [x], 325 [326 blank, 327 - 236 index, contemporary panelled calf, neatly rebacked in matching calf, with raised bands between gilt rules on spine, morocco label; corners a bit worn, some slight scoring of covers, but a good to very good copy, with several autographs on front end-papers and title-page. The title-page states this to be the "Second Edition, Corrected" of The Art of Speaking, but it is also the final lifetime edition of this influential work, whose anonymous author was Bernard Lamy (1640-1715), the "French Oratorian, mathematician and theologian" (Wikipedia). This copy once belonged the distinguished Victorian scholar Benjamin Harris Cowper (1822-1904); he inscribed the volume twice. (The libraries of Eton and the University of Edinburgh have one book each he once owned.) A related book-label gives the provenance of "B. R. Cowper" in Gothic type enclosed in a rectangular double-border. Another book-label is recent: it gives the ownership of the antiquarian bookseller Peter Stewart Young of Tillingham, in the Maldon district of Essex, with his book-pile design. Two further inscriptions are both from the eighteenth century: one by John or Jonathan Berry, dated 1728; and another by H. B. Johnson, dated April 2, 1798. ESTC T80714 finds just five copies in the United Kingdom: the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, University of Oxford (Worcester College only), the National Trust, and the University of Leeds. The database finds the greatest concentration of copies in the United States (15), but only one of them is in the Ivy League (Cornell). One further copy is in Australia (Fisher). Seller Inventory # 10144
Contact seller
Report this item
