Cotton Mather A Bibliography Complete Vol 1-3 Limited Edition

Description

Cotton Mather bibliography is one entertaining read and an impressive addition to any collection.

COTTON MATHER is still the most salient representative, interesting, controversial, provocative figure in the Colonial New England Scene.

This Bibliography provides an easy grasp of the outlines of his printed works: an easier approach, we hoped, than the shelved works, they provide, even where they are accessible

The appalling number of Mather’s publications has discouraged his readers. Other factors thwarting a fair acquaintance with the scope, aim, and true nature of his writings have been the extreme rarity of his original editions, the imperfection condition of many of them, and their scattered locations.

Let us glance at the literary output by which Cotton Mather lives in our memory.

His known printed works total 444. These with 24 entries of fragmentary pieces, here arranged chiefly in groups, under Attestation, Letter printed since his death, Newspaper contribution. Post scripts, Prefaces, etc., bring the total of the numbered entries of Mather’s printed and published works in the Bibliography to 468.

Among Mather’s 444 principal known published titles, 28 have disappeared. No copy of these is now extant. Something of their nature is known and is recorded here .

There are 15 titles of works which Mather prepared definitely for the press, which for various reasons, were not published. These titles are recorded, and what is known of them given under the unnumbered entries in our text. Of these 15 finished manuscripts, 10 are lost, 5 remain.

One of these 5 remaining titles, the Curiosa Americana, covers a group of 82 letters or communications to the royal society in London.Written during the periods of 1712 to 1724. Some of the letters were excerpted: in the society philosophical transactions; a few, more important than the rest, found publication, usually under changed titles. These appeared in our numbered series. A few of the Curiosa were lost.

The unnumbered entries in the Bibliography total some 156. These- arranged alphabetically with the numbered titles include about 122 paraphrased and imperfect tittles, with some eight ghosts, which are various older lists and library catalogues have been sometimes regarded as true titles. The Imperfect titles are linked by cross references in our text, with their correct titles- where any correction originals existed.

Among the unnumbered entries, nine titles ascribed earlier to Mather’s pen were not written by him. In most of these instances, the true author is named. One entry deals with teh well known and many times reprinted forged letters to John Higginson, outlining an alleged scheme by the General Court to bag William Penn, capture a ship load of Quakers of which he was the head, and sell them as slaves in the West Indies for good prices in rum and sugar.