£100 - £150
THE MINOR'S POCKET-BOOK, 1798. 12mo, Darton & Harvey, lacks engraved title, half of folding frontis, diary pages and some leaves at end. Collation: frontispiece, 1-12, 121-136. Half of folding frontis is missing. Diary section pp 13-120 has been removed. Last leaf, containing Hackney coach fares, is partially pasted to lower wrapper. There would have been another page of hackney coach fares and probably 6 pages of a ready reckoner. Originally bound in morocco wallet-style binding, this has been discarded along with the diary pages and pages at the end and what is left sewn into marbled wrappers. Contents include articles on the effect of long imprisonment upon body and mind; a poem on slavery and the slave trade; the extraordinary escape of a female American Indian; and the usual enigmas and charades. Contemporary ownership inscription of Robert Russel, Brackley, Northamptonshire. Cataloguer's note. This is the only known copy of the edition for 1798. The Minor's Pocket Book is famous for containing the first literary efforts of Ann Taylor, initially as a contributor for about a dozen years and afterwards as editor. The book was published for 40 years from 1790 to 1829 but the survival rate is extremely low. For more than half the years no copy has survived. For the years 1790 to 1803 Darton locates only a single issue for 1791. ESTC adds 1796 and 1797. Darton G657:9 1798. 'No copy traced, but one was purchased by Ann (Taylor) Gilbert, probably just before her 16th birthday, when the Taylors were living at Colchester.'
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