Condition Report
Contact Information
Lot 133
Sale 945 - Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana
Lots 1-307
Nov 9, 2021
4:00AM CT
Lots 308-687
Nov 10, 2021
4:00AM CT
Live / Chicago
Own a similar item?
Estimate
$2,000 -
3,000
Price Realized
$2,500
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
[MANUSCRIPT - CIPHERING]. EVANS, Cadwallader. Ciphering Book of a Colonial Schoolboy. [Philadelphia], 6 April-26 July 1763.
Folio (330 x 210 mm). 37 II. Manuscript in English, in ink, with diagrams, comprising Geometry and Trigonometry (ff.1-6), land surveying (ff.7-19), and plain, traverse, oblique and Mercator sailing (ff.20-37). With an elaborate surveying map, compass, and several diagrams. (Some mostly marginal chipping or tearing occasionally affecting text, small losses to the corners of two leaves.) Original red linen over boards, hand-lettered "C. E." on upper cover. (Upper hinge broken
A portion of the surveying exercise appears to come from William Leybourn's The Compleat Surveyor (see the fourth edition, published 1679, pp. 292-294). Evans personalizes his ciphering book on the first page, including a drawing of his rooster, "Belon is Narr Cock's Father or the Bony Cock a Doodle Doo." The drawing includes the rooster's spurs, with a note: "Spurr um up my Boy." Evans also includes an aphorism about doing good deeds.
Selections from the Property of Dr. Eugene Vigil, Antiquariat Botanicum



