Printed and Manuscript Americana

Boston: Printed and Sold by the Book-Sellers, 1784. 48mo. 32 leaves. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece portrait of George Washington, attributed to Paul Revere, and with seven in-text engravings. Full contemporary sheep over wooden boards, rear board cracked but holding, rubbed and worn, corners worn; all edges trimmed; old ink scrawl at top of frontispiece; contemporary ownership signature of Enoch Mooers at top of title-page; small loss in bottom corner of D1, affecting some text; scattered spotting to text; light to moderate wear along edges; scattered ink markings in margins; Enoch's name in ink bottom A6 recto and verso; old pin securing final five leaves. In brown morocco pull-off case. From the library of Americana collector Amor L. Hollingsworth, and with his red morocco book-plate on front inner board. Brigham, pp. 108-109; Evans 18620; Ford, p. 304; Hart, pp. xv-xvi; Heartman 76; Rosenbach 97; Wick 6; OCLC 19506720; ESTC W35989; not in Sabin

A fine, very rare, and unsophisticated copy of this highly desirable Boston-printed New-England Primer—published shortly following the end of the American Revolution and with an early and rare portrait of George Washington, attributed to Paul Revere.

Revere's portrait was based on John Norman's copper-plate engraving of Washington (itself based on Charles Willson Peale's portrait) that appeared in his Philadelphia Almanack for 1780. Revere's cut first appeared the following year, in Boston, in John D. M'Dougall and Company's Weatherwise's Town and Country Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1781. Charles Henry Hart was the first to attribute this portrait to Revere, in 1904, in his Catalogue of the Engraved Portraits of Washington, citing as evidence an October 1781 letter from Revere to his cousin Mathias Rivoire in France. In that letter, Revere wrote, "Before this reaches you, you will have heard of the victory gained over the British Army by the Allied Armies commanded by brave General Washington. (A small engraving of him, I send enclosed, it is said to be a good likeness and it is my engraving." Hart concluded that, "I think therefore, this type-metal portrait of Washington may be accepted as the Revere 'small engraving', until the ascription is disproved by the production of a copper-plate print bearing his name as engraver." Brigham concurs, writing, "Mr. Hart's opinion may be correct. The style of engraving in a way is like Revere's work, and the evidence of the letter to his cousin is interesting, if not conclusive." (Paul Revere's Engravings, pp. 108-109)

From that first appearance in 1781, until the close of the 18th century, this portrait was incredibly popular and spawned numerous copies that appeared in primers like the above, this being one of the earliest examples to feature it (the fourth according to Wick, and the second in 1784). Wick identifies 15 other appearances of this image up until 1798, stating that it "must have struck a symbolic note in the national consciousness." (Wick, p. 82)

According to RBH, only the Brinley copy, in 1881, has ever appeared at auction. Similarly rare in institutions, Heartman locates only one copy at the Huntington Library, and OCLC locates an additional four copies, at the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress (imperfect), the American Antiquarian Society (imperfect), and at the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum. ESTC locates an additional copy at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

A very well-preserved example of a fragile work that is often found imperfect--an enduring classic of children's books.