STURT, John ( engraver ). The Book of Common Prayer And Administration Of The Sacraments And Other Rites And Ceremonies Of The Church According To The Use Of The Church Of England Together With The Psalter Or Psalms Of David Pointed As They Are To Be Sun…

STURT, John ( engraver ). The Book of Common Prayer And Administration Of The Sacraments And Other Rites And Ceremonies Of The Church According To The Use Of The Church Of England Together With The Psalter Or Psalms Of David Pointed As They Are To Be Sun…The Binders Are Desired Not to Beat these Books STURT, John (engraver). The Book of Common Prayer And Administration Of The Sacraments And Other Rites And Ceremonies Of The Church According To The Use Of The Church Of England Together With The Psalter Or Psalms Of David Pointed As They Are To Be Sung Or Said In Churches. [London:] Engraven and Printed by the Permission of Mr. John Baskett printer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty. Sold by John Sturt

‘The Binders Are Desired Not to Beat these Books’

STURT, John (engraver). The Book of Common Prayer And Administration Of The Sacraments And Other Rites And Ceremonies Of The Church According To The Use Of The Church Of England Together With The Psalter Or Psalms Of David Pointed As They Are To Be Sung Or Said In Churches. [London:] ‘Engraven and Printed by the Permission of Mr. John Baskett printer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty. Sold by John Sturt engraver in Golden-Lion-Court in Aldersgate-Street’. 1717.

8vo. Contemporary black morocco, elaborately gilt to a panel design, sprays of leaves and pines expressed from the corners of the central panel, spine gilt in seven compartments, three silver catches (lacking clasps and one catch), gilt edges, marbled endpapers; pp. xxii, 166, [2 (advertisements, blank)]; with portrait of George I overlaid with text from the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, etc., portrait of the Prince of Wales and his Consort surrounded by engraved borders; all pages with engraved borders and numerous engraved initials with only few repeats, and numerous illustrations in the text showing Biblical scenes and portraits, circular table to p. V lacking volvelle and pointer as often; a very good, fresh copy; engraved armorial bookplates of ‘Sir Montague Cholmeley Bar.t’ to front pastedown and front free endpaper.

First edition of John Sturt’s (1658–1730) magnificent Book of Common Prayer, entirely engraved on silver plates with ornate vignettes and borders, our copy in a superb contemporary English binding.

Sturt, who had apprenticed under Robert White in 1674, was ‘particularly celebrated for his skill as a writing engraver, and he engraved several of the works of the calligrapher John Ayres, most notably A Tutor to Penmanship, or, The Writing Master (1698), adding—as he frequently did—a frontispiece portrait of the author. He specialized in miniature work, and it was said that he could engrave the creed on a silver penny, a claim amply reinforced by his best-known works: engraved versions of the Book of Common Prayer and of Laurence Howell’s The Orthodox Communicant, published respectively by subscription in 1717 and 1721’ (ODNB). The portrait frontispiece of King George bears, in characters so minute as to be legible only with a magnifying glass, the text of the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Commandments, the Prayer for the Royal Family, and the twenty-first Psalm.

At the foot of the final page of the list of subscribers appears the printer’s instructions to the binders: ‘The Binders are desired not to beat these Books, it doing great Damage to all Engrav’d Printing’.

Provenance: Bookplates of Sir Montague Cholmeley, Baronet (1772–1831), educated at Magdalene College, Oxford. He was High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1805, MP for Grantham 1820–26, and in 1819 was vice-president of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews.

ESTC finds seven copies in the US (BU, Huntington, LoC (lacking volvelle), Sperisen Library (lacking volvelle), Temple, UVA, Wellesley) and eight in the UK (Birmingham, BL (lacking volvelle), Canterbury Cathedral, Christ Church Oxford (two copies), Trinity College Oxford, Worcester College Oxford).

ESTC T141242.

SKU: 2123680