CHAPBOOKS - Literary Miscellany: containing Humourous Pieces, Poughnill, 1801, small 8vo, original printed wrappers. With 3 other similar chapbooks. RARE. Please see the full description below. (4)

CHAPBOOKS - [Upper wrapper:] Literary Miscellany: containing Humourous Pieces; viz. Sermon on the Word Malt, - Paris Jobbing, - &c. &c. [Title page:] Humourous & Satirical. A Sermon on the Word Malt; Parish Jobbing; The Cards Spiritualised; &c. &c. Poughnill, near Ludlow: "Printed and sold by G. Nicholson," 1801. Number 6, small 8vo (153 x 98mm). 24-pages, wood-engraved vignette on title and at the end (some light spotting and staining). Original blue printed wrappers, stitched. Provenance: Wm. Pollock (old signature on upper wrapper). With 3 other chapbooks from the same series, namely Moral Tales. The Grateful Turk; Androcles and the Lion; The Horse; Phillis and Damaris (Poughnill, 1801, no. 14), Robert Dodsley's The Economy of Human Life (Poughnill, 1805, no. 44) and Goethe's The Letters of Werter (Poughnill, 1802, no. 54), all small 8vo, in original printed wrappers. "It is an evident and acknowledged fact, that our most celebrated authors have their excellencies and defects; their admirable and less interesting compositions; and they they wrote, not only on important and permanent subjects, but on such as were temporary, adventitious and local. We, therefore, have engaged in the task of selecting the 'valuable parts' ... Subjects of utility; whatever can amend and humanize the heart, inform  the understanding, correct the judgment, and establish first, general, and liberal principles; whatever can awaken attention to obvious and important truths, will be carefully preferred. We shall avoid the adulation of power, the celebration of offensive atchievements[sic], and of savage and unmanly sports; absurd traditions; mythological fictions; unnatural allegories, visions, and fables; and details of mad or violent passions" (from the "Outlines of the Plan" printed on each wrapper). RARE. (4)