Beschreibung:

The whole duty of man laid down in a plain and familiar way for the use of all, … With Private devotions for several occasions.
London: printed [by J.H.] for E. and R. Pawlet, [n.d. -]1709. Two parts in 1 volume, 12mo (150 x 88 mm). Engraved frontispiece and general title. Later tree calf, bound in about 1781 in the style of Edwards of Halifax, covers with neo-classical roll-tool border, the flat spine divided into six compartments by a smaller version of the roll-tool used on the covers, red morocco lettering-piece in the second compartment, the others with repeat decoration made up from three different rolls (two of them repeated), gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, the front pastedown with an onlaid blue morocco rectangle tooled in gilt to a neo-classical design around an onlaid red morocco oval lettered in gilt “William / Godwin / 1781”. Condition : lacking the final leaf X12 (an advertisement leaf?), and possibly A1 a letterpress title, S2 with paperfault hole resulting in some slight loss of text; joints slightly split. Provenance : William Godwin (1756-1836, binding/book-label, signature on A3, partial signature on B1, red monogram stamps on A3 and front blank); Miss Moulton-Barratt (Westover, Isle of Wight, loosely inserted note of purchase). a fine but restrained and appropriate binding on a work with an interesting and appropritae provenance. The presence of the cut signature indicates that Godwin owned this work for some time before commissioning the re-bind, at which point the fine two-tone leather ownership label was added. The style of the tooling and the materials used are both eminiscent of the work Edwards of Halifax, but it has not been possible to confirm this. William Godwin ”was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and one of the first modern proponents of philosophical anarchism. Godwin is most famous for two books that he published within the space of a year: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice , an attack on political institutions, and Things as They Are or The Adventures of Caleb Williams , which attacks aristocratic privilege, but also is virtually the first mystery novel. Based on the success of both, Godwin featured prominently in the radical circles of London in the 1790s. In the ensuing conservative reaction to British radicalism, Godwin was attacked, in part because of his marriage to the pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797 and his candid biography of her after her death; their child, Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley) would go on to author Frankenstein and marry the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley Godwin wrote prolifically in the genres of novels, history and demography throughout his life time. With his second wife, Mary Jane Clairmont, he wrote children's primers on Biblical and classical history, which he published along with such works as Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare . He also has had considerable influence on British literature and literary culture.” (Wikipedia). The present work, a relic of his early life, was re-bound for Godwin the year before he moved to London: a time when he was coming to reject the strict Calvinism of his youth but still evidently valued the strictures and sentiments of the present work.