Sale 2455 - Printed & Manuscript Americana, September 28, 2017

116 c   (ENCYCLOPEDIA.) Encyclopaedia; or,A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature. 19 maps, 521 (of 522) plates including frontispiece, 2 folding tables (the maps and plates numbered 1-237 and 239-541, with 238 apparently not issued). 18 volumes (offered without the 3-volume supplement published from 1800 to 1803). 4to, uniform contemporary calf, peeling to some boards, otherwise minimal wear; lacking plate 126, some hinges split, minor foxing and offsetting, occasional minor dampstaining. Philadelphia, [1790]-1798 [1,000/1,500] the first encyclopedia published in america . The work was printed on American-made paper with a new American-made set of type.The text is largely derived from the third edition of the Encyclo- paedia Britannica, though it does include some original submissions byAmericans, including an 87-page article on America by Jedidiah Morse, and long rewritten entries on anatomy and chemistry.The article on Quakers features a vicious attack on founder George Fox (“one of the most extravagant and absurd enthusiasts that ever lived”), which may have played well in England, but the Philadelphia publisher was prevailed upon to append a 4-page rebuttal from a local Quaker committee, found here at the end of Volume XV. The plates cover natural history, geography, science, engineering and more. The anatomical plates constitute the earliest such illustrations produced in America; most of these were by Robert Scot, first engraver of the United States Mint.The title pages to each volume carry the date 1798, as they were issued after the final volume had been published.The missing plate 238 was lacking from all copies examined by Robert Arner for his exhaustive monograph, Dobson’s Encyclopedia (page 142), and was also absent from the British source edition. “That the scholars of this country could critically review and correct the scientific authorities of Great Britain . . . is significant of a high standard of scholarship. . . . From various causes, chief among which were, its irregular manner of publication, and the period of years required in its printing, copies of the work are uncommonly found even in the older and larger libraries, and all have some peculiarities or defects. . . .When the risks of publication are considered, the courageous and admirable manner in which the publisher carried out the work to a conclusion, gives the name of Thomas Dobson, of Philadelphia, a high rank in the book-publishing annals of this country”—Evans 22486, 33676-33693. Rink, Technical Americana 116; Sabin 22555.