Wednesday 28 October 2015

Images of the Rylands' Copies of Jonathan Edwards's Books

I have posted on this blog before about John Ryland, Jr. and his interest in Jonathan Edwards. He is arguably the biggest fan of Edwards that ever lived.

Image result for john collett Ryland
John Collett Ryland
Ryland's father was the English Particular Baptist minister John Collett Ryland, who also appreciated Edwards's writings. The elder Ryland pastored a church at College Lane in Northampton, England, before moving his ministry to a church at Enfield (outside London) in 1786. He began reading Edwards as early as the 1740s, owning a 1742 edition of The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. In 1780, Collett Ryland worked with the English printer Thomas Dicey of Northampton to publish a second edition of Edwards's sermon, The Excellency of Christ, which first appeared within a collection of Edwards's sermons published in 1738  as Discourses on Various Important Subjects. In his preface for the 1780 edition, Collett Ryland wrote that Edwards was "the greatest divine that ever adorned the American world," purposely publishing the work at the cheap price of four pence or three shillings "to those who give them away." By publishing Edwards's sermon at an inexpensive price, Collett Ryland hoped to make the discourse affordable to as many "serious Christians" as possible.

Image result for john collett Ryland
John Ryland, Jr.
Collett Ryland's son, John Ryland, Jr., loved Edwards's works even more. He was obsessed with anything having to do with Edwards. Once he established a correspondence with Jonathan Edwards, Jr., he constantly asked the son for one of the elder Edwards's writings, wanting to hold it in hands and gaze at it as a memorial piece, but also to transcribe and publish it locally in England. "Some of my friends would smile at my longing for a relique [sic] of President Edwards," Ryland wrote to Edwards, Jr., "but if it be a spice of popery I cannot help it" (Ryland, Jr. to Edwards, Jr., June 29, 1787, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Gen MSS 151). He idolized Edwards so much, that after remarrying in 1789, he named his next son Jonathan Edwards Ryland when he was born in 1798.

Bristol Baptist College, England
At Bristol Baptist College in England, the library holds a cache of manuscripts by the English Particular Baptists Andrew Fuller, John Collett Ryland, and John Ryland. It also has two important books by Edwards that were owned by the Rylands. Below are images of the 1765 Edinburgh edition of The Life of David Brainerd and the 1765 Boston edition of The Life of Jonathan Edwards, owned by the Rylands.


The elder Ryland owned a copy of The Life of Edwards, which he lent to his son. Before returning it to his father, Ryland, Jr. wrote on the pastedown cover in 1773 that this book was about "the greatest, wisest, humblest, and holyest of uninspired men!" "If ever I lend it," he exclaimed, "I desire the utmost care may be taken of it."



On the inside cover of his copy of The Life of Brainerd, Ryland, Jr. wrote that he "prizes" this book "above almost all others."


I thank Mike Brealey, librarian at Bristol Baptist College in England, for granting me permission to post these images on my blog.

Tuesday 27 October 2015

Books that I am reading

As I wrap up the research for my book on Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture, I finally have some time to catch up on some reading within my discipline. Currently, I am reading the following recently published books:

 
 
   

Friday 23 October 2015

Digital Images of Jonathan Edwards's Books

Andy Carroll and I are very close to finishing our digital humanities project of plotting four subscription lists for Jonathan Edwards's books. We have just a few more kinks to work out and then I should be able to post the link for these maps.

Two days ago, my wife and I were able to bring most of my Edwards antiquarian books into the UTC photography studio at our library, where we took several high resolution digital images. I am very grateful to Bo Baker for helping me edit and convert these images to TIFF files.

I am planning on using some of these images below for my forthcoming book on Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture. But for now, I wanted to post the low resolution JPG images now on the web for people to see. If you would like to use the high resolution images, please email me and I would be glad to supply you with the appropriate TIFF file, if you would be willing to credit me. Enjoy!

Religious Affections--Boston--1746
Religious Affections--Boston--1746
Bookseller's Advertisement--Religious Affections--Boston--1746
Religious Affections--Boston--Second Edition--1768

Religious Affections--Boston--Second Edition--1768
Religious Affections--Second Edition--Boston--1768
A History of the Work of Redemption--Worcester--1792
A History of the Work of Redemption--Worcester--1792
 

A History of the Work of Redemption--Boston--1782

A History of the Work of Redemption--Boston--1782
  
Practical Sermons--Edinburgh--1788

Bookseller's Advertisement--Practical Sermons--Edinburgh--1788

A History of the Work of Redemption--Edinburgh--1774
A History of the Work of Redemption--Edinburgh--1774
A History of the Work of Redemption--Edinburgh--1774
The Life of David Brainerd--Boston--1749
The Life of David Brainerd--Boston--1749
The Life of David Brainerd--Boston--1749
Subscription List--The Life of David Brainerd--Boston--1749
Two Dissertations--Philadelphia--1791
A Faithful Narrative--Elizabethtown--1790

Remarks on Important Theological Controversies--Edinburgh--1796
  
Remarks on Important Theological Controversies--Edinburgh--1796

Twenty Sermons--Edinburgh--1789
Miscellaneous Observations--Edinburgh--1793
Miscellaneous Observations--Edinburgh--1793
Religious Affections--New York--1787
Religious Affections--New York--1787
Religious Affections--New York--1787
Original Sin--Boston--1758
Fly Leaf--Original Sin--Boston--1758
Original Sin--Boston--1758
Freedom of the Will--Fourth Edition--Wilmington, DE--1790
Joseph Bellamy--True Religion Delineated--1750
Joseph Bellamy--True Religion Delineated--1750
Frontispiece Portrait of Edwards--A History of the Work of Redemption--New York--1793
A History of the Work of Redemption--New York--1793
The Life of David Brainerd--Utrecht--1756

Monday 5 October 2015

Upcoming TEDS Talk

Image result for jonathan edwards center Trinity TEDSI am giving a TEDS talk on Tuesday, October 13 at 1:30pm. No, not that kind of Ted's talk. My talk will be held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and sponsored by the Jonathan Edwards Center there. This is part of the TEDS lecture series on "New Directions in Edwards Studies."

At TEDS, I will be speaking on "Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture." I am planning on bringing in several copies of my books by Jonathan Edwards and showing how the way that they were packaged matters, in terms of understanding the reception of his works and eighteenth-century print culture. I will also be talking about how specific people helped promote his publications, using The Life of David Brainerd as a case study. If you are in the Chicago area next Tuesday, please join us at Hinkson Hall, from 1:30 to 3:00pm.

Friday 2 October 2015

More Cool Antiquarian Books!

Today, I am reporting on three antiquarian books that arrived in the mail within the last week. This will (most likely) be my last purchases for the foreseeable future since my personal and professional book budget is nearly depleted at this point.

Remarks on Important Theological Controversies (Edinburgh, 1796)--Signed by Jonathan Edwards, Jr. in 1797

Book #1: Remarks on Important Theological Controversies
Arguably, the coolest book that arrived by post a few days ago is a first edition of Remarks on Important Theological Controversies, published at Edinburgh in 1796. This is the last posthumous book by Edwards that his son Jonathan Edwards, Jr. transcribed and sent to John Erskine at Edinburgh to edit and publish. For this second volume of Jonathan Edwards Sr.'s "Miscellanies," Edwards, Jr. made arrangements once again to have the Edinburgh bookseller Margaret Gray publish this posthumous book. Through Erskine's influence, Margaret and her father William had been the leading publishers of Edwards's books in Scotland in the latter half of the century. William Gray's first Edwards publication was a 1765 edition of The Life of David Brainerd. Later, in 1774, he published the first edition of A History of the Work of Redemption, which represents the first posthumous work that Edwards, Jr. and Erskine collaborated in transcribing and editing.

After William Gray died in the mid-1780s, his daughter Margaret took over the family bookselling business and began publishing more of Edwards's writings at Edinburgh. The first book by Edwards that she published was Sermons on Various Important Subjects in 1785. This volume included all five sermons in Edwards's Discourses on Various Important Subjects, published at Boston in 1738, plus "God Glorified in the Work of Redemption,""Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," and his "Farewell Sermon." Margaret Gray later reprinted A History of the Work of Redemption in 1788 and 1793. She also published a series of never before printed Practical Sermons by Edwards in 1788. In 1789, she published Edwards's Twenty Sermons, which included the same set of fifteen Sermons on the Following Subjects that Edwards, Jr. transcribed and had printed at Hartford in 1780, plus "A Divine and Supernatural Light," "The Church's Marriage to Her Sons, and to Her God" "True Saints, When Absent from the Body, Are Present with the Lord," "God's Awful Judgement in the Breaking and Withering of the Strong Rods of a Community," and "True Grace Distinguished from the Experience of Devils." Her final book by Edwards was Miscellaneous Observations on Important Subjects, the first volume of edited Miscellanies, published in 1793.

When Margaret Gray died one year later, her apprentice James Galbraith partnered with an up-and-coming bookseller named Archibald Constable, who would go on to be Sir Walter Scott's chief publisher, to issue Remarks on Important Theological Controversies in 1796. Although Erskine hoped that Edwards, Jr. would transcribe a third volume of his father's Miscellanies to be published in Scotland, the son could not find the time to complete a third volume. Edwards, Jr. had recently relocated from New Haven to Colebrook, Connecticut to be a pastor of a church from 1795 until 1799. He then took a position as the president of Union College in Schenectady, New York before passing away in 1801. With all of these changes, it seems that he could not carve out some time to complete a third volume of father's Miscellanies.

The copy of Remarks on Important Theological Controversies that I recently purchased is not only valuable to me because it is the last book by Edwards that his son transcribed and published, but it also happens to be Edwards, Jr.'s personal copy! On the flyleaf page, you can see that Jonathan Edwards, Jr. signed his name in 1797 (before being passed on to Mary Edwards). The book was bound in calfskin, and on the back board, you can see that it showcases a "tree" style staining, whereby the finisher would use a mixture of pearl ash and copperas to create a tree shape pattern. This kind of elaborate binding style seems fitting for a presentation copy to the editor of this work.

Book #2: Religious Affections, Second Edition (Boston, 1768)
Religious Affections (New York, 1768)
Another book that I added to my collection this week is the second edition of Edwards's Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, reprinted at New York by James Parker for the bookseller Garrat Noel. I have been wanting a copy of this particular book because of the history behind this publication. The August 4, 1768 issue of The New-York Journal advertised Noel's second edition as "neatly bound" and on "handsome type" for eight shillings. I concur with this advertisement, that the book is attractively bound, especially for a colonial book. Later, this book was reissued by the London bookseller George Keith. Although Keith called his book the "fourth edition," there is no doubt that it is a reissue of Noel's second edition falsely advertised on the title page. I think that what happened in this case is that Noel's second edition did not sell well, and so he probably sold his remainder copies to Keith, who remarked them falsely as the "fourth edition" to unsuspecting Londoners.

Book #3: Religious Affections (Elizabethtown, 1787)
Religious Affections (1787) on mottled calfskin, made by sponging the boards with acid or dyes
This final book that arrived in the mail this week is also significant to my research on the history of Edwards's publications. This particular edition of Religious Affections was printed in Elizabethtown by Shepard Kollock for the New York bookseller Robert Hodge. I have posted about Hodge before, saying that he had such great success publishing a new edition of A History of the Work of Redemption in 1786, that he decided to sponsor a new edition of Religious Affections one year later. This edition of Religious Affections, however, was not as successful. Whereas 476 people subscribed for 736 copies of his edition of A History of the Work of Redemption, only 308 people subscribed for 462 copies of his edition of Religious Affections.

I am currently working with UTC's GIS manager Andy Carroll to plot four of Edwards's subscription lists, including those found in Hodge's editions of A History of the Work of Redemption and Religious Affections. I hope to share our work soon, but for now, I will end this post by showing you that my copy was formerly owned by the Newark minister Uzal Ogden, a subscriber for the book, who signed his name above the title page, and indicated that he paid the subscription price of ten shillings at the time that it was published in 1787.
Uzal Ogden signs his name in 1787 above the title page, and the price of 10s. that he paid
Ogden's name appears on the subscription page in the "O" section