c1764 Miscellaneous Correspondence In Prose and Verse

Description

Folding Plates, Illustrated, Scarce

Bound in calf with gilt lettering. Scarce. With fifteen plates in volume one and eighteen in volume two, including five folding plates. Volume I & II only of three. Part of a thirteen volume set making up The general magazine of arts and sciences, philosophical, philological, mathematical, and mechanical. Originally published between January 1755 and December 1758. Bound without title pages. Benjamin Martin (1704-1782) was a schoolmaster and travelling lecturer who invented several optical instruments. “Martin's most ambitious literary project was The general magazine of arts and sciences, philosophical, philological, mathematical, and mechanical. Designed to be published in about 120 sixpenny monthly numbers, beginning in January 1755, it was extensively advertised in London and provincial newspapers. A combination of a part-work encyclopaedia and a topical periodical, each number consisted of a few pages of five separate main works, with associated copperplates, plus a few pages of topical material, such as births and deaths, and prices of stocks. On completion of the project in 1764 the text and plates were bound into thirteen octavo volumes entitled: The Young Gentleman and Lady's Philosophy, The Natural History of England, A Comprehensive System of Philology, Mathematical Institutions (all 2 vols.), Biographia philosophica (1 vol.), and Miscellaneous Correspondence (4 vols.). Only the last had any resemblance to a periodical: the others were complete works in themselves.” - DNB