Pilgrim's Progress From This World, To That Which Is To Come Complete In Three Parts. Delivered Under The Similitude Of A Dream. To Which Is Added, The Life And Death Of The Author. Embellished With Cuts. Part The First [-Thrid]. Wherein Is Discovered I. The Manner Of His Setting Out. Ii. His Dangerous Journey, And Iii. His Safe Arrival At The Desired Country. Bunyan, John Illustrated Books,Pmm,Religion

Full Description: BUNYAN, John. The Pilgrim's Progress from this World, to that Which is to Come:. Complete in Three Parts. Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream. To Which is added, The Life and Death of the Author. Embellished with Cuts. Part the First [-Thrid]. Wherein is discovered I. The Manner of his Setting Out. II. His Dangerous Journey, And III. His Safe Arrival at the Desired Country. Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, 1790-1791. First illustrated edition by Isaiah Thomas, and likely the first complete in three parts illustrated American edition. Twelvemo (6 3/4 x 4 inches; 172 x 105 mm). [2], 9-324, 345-404 pp. Bound without two preliminary leaves A3 and A4. There is a jump in pagination after page 324, but collation is correct. With 14 engraved plates inclusive of a separate frontispiece for each part and eleven other engravings in the text. With a separate title-page for each part. Parts II and III are dated 1790, and Part I is dated 1791. We could only find two copies at auction on Rare Book Hub since 1933, one of which was defective. Full contemporary (?) calf. Boards and spine with some chipping and rubbing. Corners bumped. Previous owner's old ink note on blank recto of first frontispiece. A large tear to upper right corner of leaf U5, with some loss of text. Leaves S2 and W4 with large closed tears, touching text and crudely stitched closed, but with no loss. Signatures G and H with tearing to lower inner margin, generally not affecting text, but with loss to leaf H[2] obscuring a few words in margin. Paper is toned and brittle as usual from American paper of this time. Overall a very good copy of a rare edition. "Part 3, first issued at London in 1693, is an imitation of Bunyan's style by an anonymous author" (Evans) "Without apparent exception, cuts for The Pilgrim's Progress during this period [1790s] and for that matter, well into the 1820's- were imitative. Indeed, the lack of variety in the illustrations might be said to be a principal characteristic of the American editions of Pilgrim's Progress. Occasionally an American edition itself furnished the cuts for later printings, as was the case with Isaiah Thomas's many issues of Bunyan's work. Thus Thomas's Boston editions of 1794 and 1800, as well as the "first" Exeter edition of 1804, borrowed plates from the Worcester edition of 1790. ("Illustrations of American Editions of "The Pilgrim's Progress" to 1870." David E. Smith, Gillett G. Griffin.) The most well-known allegory ever written, this journey of the protagonist, Christian, is simultaneously filled with vivid and full human portraits of its characters. With over 100,000 copies sold in Bunyan's lifetime, this "most perfect and complex of fairy tales" succeeded in attracting audiences from every Christian sect. ESTC W18748. Evans 23232 HBS 69116. $5,000.