Leusden John Comp (1 results)

(ELIOT, JOHN). [LEUSDEN, John] comp. The Book of Psalmes with the New English Translation.London (actually Utrecht): Samuel Smith, 1688. [4], 240, [2] leaves. Printed in English and Hebrew on facing pages. 12mo. Bound in later pebbled cloth, gilt tooled spine ends, raised spine bands. Internally very clean, mild toning throughout, else very good or better. SABIN 66451. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 688/22. JCB (4), p.185. WING B2744A. An exceptionally rare printing of the Book of Psalms dedicated to John Eliot in the British Colonies. WorldCat locates 11 holdings of the London imprint [actually Utrecht], appearing last at auction in 1924. This edition of the Psalms has a lengthy dedication to the Rev. John Eliot for his work among the Indians of New England, and also to the "twenty four American ministers" (Indians converted to Christianity) who were helping him bring the gospel to American Indians. The dedication reads: "To the very reverend and pious John Eliot. The indefatigable and faithfull minister.and venerable apostle of the Indians in America; who hath translated into, and published in, the American tongue, by an American Labour, the Bible and several English practical tracts, together with Catechisms; being the first who preached the word of God to the Americans in the Indian tongue, and gathered a Church of Indian Converts, and administrated the Holy Supper to them." The second edition of Eliot's important translation of the Bible into the Natick dialect of the Massachusetts Indians had been printed (with the help of an Indian printer) in Cambridge, Massachusetts two years before the publication of this edition of the Psalms. The following leaf extends the dedication to the "twenty four American [i.e. Indian] ministers" in New England, "lately Gentiles, but now converted to the Christian Religion.and publishing the Word of God and the Gospel of Christ in the American tongue.in great fervour, among the Americans in twenty four American Churches." In the preface John Leusden, the publisher, recounts the activities of Eliot and his Indian ministers in New England based on information he received in a letter from Increase Mather, "president of the College or Illustrious School at Boston," a.k.a. Harvard. This edition of the Psalms also appears with a Utrecht imprint. Both were published by Joh.