The Phenix

The Phenix :

OR, A

R E V I V A L

O F

Scarce and Valuable Pieces

From the Remotest Antiquity

Down to the Present Times

B E I N G

A C O L L E C T I O N of Manuscripts and

Printed Tracts, no where to be found but

in the Closets of the Curious

L O N D O N, Printed for J. Morphew near Stationers Hall

M.DCC.VII.

DESCRIPTION

(ii) + 570 + (ii)

(ii) + 552 + (ii)

Books measure 195mm x 130mm approximately.

Nice contemporary bindings in full panelled brown calf. Spine with five gilt-ruled raised bands with elaborate gilt decoration to compartments and maroon and black title and volume labels. Board panel work with blind-tooled borders and leaf cornices. Plain end-papers and paste-downs.

CONDITION

The bindings are firm although boards are a little loose with front board of vol II cracked along lower half. Some wear and gilt losses to spines. Boards retain a rich deep lustre with only some surface scratches and small losses to leather and nibbles to edges, wear to hinges and light bumping to corners. Internally the pages are uniformly browned with random foxing throughout, and the odd spot or blemish. Small loss of paper to lower corner of title page verso of vol I. Staining to borders of paste-downs. Previous owner bookplate central to front paste-downs.

A very nice set of interesting volumes in good overall condition for 300 plus year old books.

INTERESTING

John Dunton (1659 to 1733) was an English bookseller and author. In 1691 he founded The Athenian Society to publish The Athenian Mercury, the first major popular periodical and first miscellaneous periodical in England. In 1693, for four weeks, the Athenian Society also published The Ladies' Mercury, the first periodical published that was specifically designed just for women.

Dunton was well-travelled and spent time in Ireland, Holland and New England (Boston and Cambridge). On his return to England, he opened a new shop in London in the Poultry, in the hope of better times. Here, he founded in 1691 a new kind of journal, The Athenian Gazette, with anonymous questions-and-answers. His wife died in 1697, and he married a second time; but a quarrel about property led to a separation; and being incapable of managing his own affairs, he spent the last years of his life in great poverty.

He gave an account of his travels around Ireland in Teague Land, or A Merry Ramble to the Wild Irish (1698). He gave an interesting view of the workings of the Irish Courts and brief sketches of the Irish judges.

He wrote several books whose titles are today among specialists better known than their contents ranging from "The informer's doom, or, An unseasonable letter from Utopia directed to the man in the moon giving a full and pleasant account of the arraignment, tryal, and condemnation of all those grand and bitter enemies that disturb and molest all kingdoms and states throughout the Christian world" (1689).