1690 A Letter to a Friend Upon Occasion of the Death of his Friend

Description

Fine Binding, First Edition, Illustrated, Signed Binding

The author's name is written as 'Thomas Brown' to the title page.

Bound by noted Arts and Crafts bookbinder Katherine Adams (1862-1952). To the rear pastedown there is a note 'bound by Katherine Adams, 1914'. With her gilt stamp to the rear pastedown.

Sir Geoffrey Keynes' stamp to the front pastedown, and his inscription dated 1914 to the recto of front endpaper. Sir Geoffrey Keynes was an English surgeon and author. Keynes penned a biography of Sir Thomas Browne, the author of this work in 1931. In that bibliography he notes how this is the most uncommon of Browne's works. He cites Sir William Osler as noting that there are seven copies recorded of this work.

This work is from the estate of the late John Lawson (1932-2019).

Sir Thomas Browne was an English Polymath and author of many works of varying genres including science, medicine, religion and the esoteric. 'A Letter to a Friend' was first written in 1656 and then published posthumously.

This work is a literary elaboration of a clinical report of a real patient who died of phthisis under Sir Thomas Browne's care. It is believed that the patient is Robert Loveday, a talented young author who translated part of La Calprenede's 'Cleopatre' and published it as 'Hymen's Praeludia, or Love's Masterpiece'. The friend to whom this letter has been written, is probably Sir John Pettus.

Scholars believe that this work was written at the same time as Browne's 'Hydrotaphia', but there were various political and personal reasons why Browne did not wish to publish an intimate study of his patient during his lifetime.

This treatise has many speculations on the human condition. It is believed that Browne's work was used as a source in the twenty-first century by one Mary Leitao to describe the skin condition her son was suffering from. She chose the name 'Morgellon's Disease' having revived this name from Browne's text. Browne described a condition whereby children break out with 'harsh hairs' on their backs. However, the symptoms that Browne described are not linked to the modern cases.

This work was one of Browne's later works, following his celebrated spiritual testament 'Religio Medici' and his refutation of superstition 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica'.

This is a fascinating and very well regarded medical treatise of case-histories and contains many of Browne's well known witty speculations on the human condition.