EIIEA IITEPOENTA or, The Diversions of Purley (Epea Pteroenta) by Tooke, John Horne

Philadelphia: Wm. Duane. First American Edition. Hardcover. Good. The Wikipedia entry devoted to "John Horne Tooke" notes that the author, born 25 June 1736 – 18 March 1812, was born John Horne but in 1782 added the surname of his friend William Tooke. Horne was an "English clergyman, politician, and philologist. Associated with radical proponents of parliamentary reform, he stood trial for treason in November 1794." Published in 1806 and 1807, stated First American Edition from the Second London Edition, complete in two volumes, bound handsomely in contemporary mottled calf, red leather labels, gilt lettering thereover, speckled edges, with Williams, Cornhill bookseller's ticket inside front flap at top, signatures of "Edwd Brooks" (perhaps a librarian?) on both paste-downs. Original receipt of purchase for $20 from Goodspeed's Book Shop of Boston, Massachusetts, and laid in is a T & R Yonge Books of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Toning to pastedowns, light waffling to text-blocks, scuffing to and light cracking to joints, else still quite sturdy and still attractive, with stamped gilt titles over red labels at spines and stamped volume numbers, too. At frontis of Volume 1 is a steel engraving of a disc inside an orb with a human observer, and with depicted relationships thereto, to wit: after, before, into, under, onto, against, through, besides, etc. At Frontis of Volume 2 is another steel engraving of Dum brevis efse laboro obscuris fio (When I work short I become darker), quite fine, leading to offsetting opposite. Volume 1: extensive frontis matter, 2-432 pp.; Volume 2: 2-463 pp. plus Index to each volume printed separately. Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.