1744 Boston imprint, Thomas Prince, The Christian History

We recently sold this volume and would like to keep an online record of it. 

Prince, Thomas. The Christian History, containing Accounts of the Revival and Propagation of Religion in Great Britain America. For the Year 1743. Boston, N. E.: Printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, for T. Prince, junr., 1744. First Edition.

Title page dated 1744, individual issues dated 1743, last few 1743,4. This volume contains 50 of 52 issues for the year, lacking nos. 2 & 3; binding note indicates they were not included. Full calf, modern binding in period style, plain leather boards, raised bands to spine, leather spine label with title & "1743." New end papers with the original Bristol Education Society bookplate dated 1781 retained, and "Baptist Library" also retained. Brad Bush's round emboss stamp on the new ffep, a few incidental markings on the tp. Tp., vi., (1)-8, (24)-400 remarkably clean pp., a little 18th cent. marginalia. Title page with noticeable stains; pencil note to front paste-down regarding the lack of two issues in the volume. Very good. Full calf.  [4188]

The chronicle of the Great Awakening, the fourth magazine printed in the American colonies, and the longest-lasting of any printed beforehand. The first year (of 2) of what Sabin describes as "One of the earliest of American magazines. It was undertaken at the suggestion of Rev. Thomas Prince, who was one of the principal contributors." - Sabin 65618. Evans 5154. ESTC P6632.

The bookplate notes that it was from "Mr. Evans's Library." Caleb Evans (1737-1791), D. D. of Aberdeen; Baptist minister at Bristol, Academy tutor, son of Hugh Evans, both father and son were at one time heads of the Bristol Baptist Academy.

No. 6044 in Roberts, Whitefield in Print. "The Christian History was regularly published in numbers of eight pages, each Saturday, for two years (March 5th 1743 to Feb. 23, 1745), each year making a volume to which was prefixed a title page and index. There were 104 weekly issues in all. Dr. Prince described the first age of New England as one of almost continual revival. Preaching was attended with so much power in some places 'that it was commonly an inquiry, by such members of a family as were detained at home on a Sabbath, whether any had been visibly awakened in the house of God that day. And few Sabbaths did pass without some being evidently converted, and some convincing proof of the power of God accompanying his Word.'"

"Thomas Prince [1687-1758] was born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, May 15, 1687. At Harvard, where he graduated in 1709, he was dubbed a "praying student." After a stay of some years abroad, he joined Joseph Sewall in the Pastorate of Old South Church, Boston, in 1718 and remained there for the next forty years. When Whitefield came to Boston and the clergy were badly divided, Prince became one of the strongest supporters of his ministry and gladly faced the scorn of men like Charles Chauncy in order to support and advance the cause of true religion. As a chronicler of revivals, no one in New England surpassed Thomas Prince." - Roberts.