Books and Manuscripts

Care, Henry, and William Nelson
English Liberties, or the Free-born Subject's Inheritance. Containing Magna Charta...
Providence, Rhode Island: Printed and Sold by John Carter, 1774. Second American edition (sixth edition overall). 8vo. viii, 350, (2) pp.; lacking final two pages of the subscriber's list. Three-quarter tan speckled calf over marbled paper-covered boards, red morocco spine label, stamped in blind and in gilt; top and bottom edge stained black, fore-edge trimmed; S.C.M.A. Library ink stamp on title-page, contemporary ownership signature of James Moody at top of same; center and bottom corner of title-page repaired, foxing and staining to same; bottom corner, p. (3) repaired; foxing to text; same library ink stamp, bottom p. 173; small loss at bottom corner, pp. 249/250, but not affecting text; scattered edge-wear. Sabin 10819; Evans 13185; ESTC W31881

Second American edition of Henry Care's influential English Liberties, featuring a printing of the Magna Carta and other important statutes. "Principally designed for America," this edition was published only a few months following the passage of the Intolerable Acts, and with its enumeration of fundamental English rights, was likely printed to capitalize on American colonists' outrage over Parliament's oppressive actions.