Books and Manuscripts

Cartwright, Thomas
A Confutation of the Rhemists Translation, Glosses and Annotations on the New Testament...
(Leiden) : Printed (by William Brewster) in the yeare 1618. First edition. Folio. (lviii), 761, (19) pp. Illustrated with woodcut printer's device on title-page, and woodcut initials and head- and tail-pieces. Full contemporary brown vellum over boards, sometime recased or rebacked, boards and extremities rubbed; edges stained black; endpapers renewed and hinges reinforced; front blank soiled and repaired in gutter and lower edge; title-page dampstained with repairs and wear along edges, 18th century ownership signature of Robert Mackay, Schoolmaster in Kildonan, Scotland, on same, other old ownership inscriptions at top now crossed out; wear along edges of leaves at front and at rear; light to moderate dampstaining along edges of most leaves; scattered soiling and toning to text; small loss in top corner, pp. 41/42; tears and small loss in top edge pp. 309/310; old manuscript notations on verso of final blank. Herbert 364

First edition of of Thomas Cartwright's refutation of the 1582 Rheims Catholic New Testament, considered one of the most significant productions of William Brewster's clandestine Pilgrim Press in Leiden. A leading Puritan Separatist, Brewster printed this work two years before he and the Pilgrims embarked on the Mayflower to found the Plymouth Colony in America, the first permanent English colony in New England. Brewster established his press in 1617, and secretly distributed its works within England. In 1619, an infuriated King James pressured Dutch authorities to suppress the press, and Brewster went into hiding. Upon his resettlement in the New World, Brewster became a senior elder of the colony and served as its religious leader.