Beschreibung:

BURTON, ROBERT. [PSEUD. NATHANIEL CROUCH. c.1632-c.1675]. Youth's Divine Pastime. In Two Parts. Part I. New-York: Printed and sold by W. Durell, at No 19 Queen Street, 179[2]. 12mo (132 x 73 mm). 104 (of 108 pp, lacking pp 15-16, 33-34); engraved frontis, plus 37 (of 39) engraved plates. Original original sheep-backed paper covered wooden boards, lacking 1/3 of front board, and 2/3 of rear board, chipping to page edges, some loss, lower half of pp 13-14 and 17-18 missing, some staining along fore-edge margins sometimes affecting text. Provenance: Jane McMichael (inscription to flyleaf, "her book, Sept 26, 1792"); Maria Debevoise (19th century inscription to paste-down). PRESUMED AND STATED FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF CROUCH/BURTON'S CLASSIC DARK BIBLICAL STORIES. This American edition, printed by William Durell in New-York in 1792 (dated from inscription, last figure of date obscured from tile page), appears to contain new engravings from its earlier British counterparts. Interestingly, American engraver Alexander Anderson was working for Durell from during the period (from diary entries in 1793), most notably on Durell's The Whole, Genuine and Complete Works of Flavius Josephus(1792-1794), and Anderson was engraving in New York as early as 1791. A nearly complete copy of a heretofore unknown rarity. For the early history of Alexander Anderson see Pomeroy "Alexander Anderson: Life and Engravings before 1800," and Alexander Anderson 1775-1870, Wood Engraver and Illustrator, an Annotated Bibliography.