The Works of Aristotle, the Famous Philosopher. In Four Parts, Containing . . . a New Edition.
Philadelphia: Printed for the Booksellers, 1798 [i.e., 1799]. 12mo (6.75 x 4.25 inches), original sprinkled calf over pasteboard, red morocco label, gilt lettering, 72, 100, 68, 39 [i.e., 34], [2] pages. Woodcuts in the text. Parts 2-4 have separate title pages, dated 1799, 1792, and 1792 respectively. Boards somewhat bowed and a bit bumped and rubbed; some light foxing and soiling; in very good condition. Item #22429
“These amorous engagements should not be often repeated till the conception is confirmed. And it may not be amiss to remind the bridegroom, that the fair lasts all year, and he should be careful not to spend his stock lavishly, as women, in general, are better pleased in having a thing once well done, than often ill done.” An early American edition of a work generally attributed to the 17th century English physician and mountebank William Salmon, this text for over a century perhaps the most popular folk and medical sex education manual in the Anglo-American world. Eighteenth-century American editions are rarely met with, and the work has long been argued to straddle the line between medical and pornographic. Evans 33312, 35116, 24057, 24058; Austin 74; Atwater 115: “The 1798 Philadelphia edition was apparently not issued with the ‘maid all hairy and infant born black’ frontispiece, and does not include the depiction of the gravid uterus common to other editions of the Masterpiece in this textual tradition.” Front free endpaper excised, but retaining the final blank.
Price: $1,500.00