Winthrop, John; Savage, James. The History of New England from 1630 to 1649 (Two volume set), By John Winthrop, Esq., First Governor of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. From His Original Manuscripts. With Notes to illustrate the Civil and Ecclesiastical Concerns, the Geography, Settlement, and Institutions of the Country, and the Lives and Manners of the Principal Planters. By James Savage, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society. A New Edition, with Additions and Corrections by the Former Editor. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1853. [12548]
Two volumes in recent half speckled calf with marbled boards, red & blue leather spine title labels, bindings fine, new end papers, 9 x 6 1/4 inches, top page edges gilt. Vol. I. - steel-engraved portrait of Winthrop with tissue guard, xviii, [2], 514 pp., folding facsimile letter by Winthrop to his wife. Vol. II. - steel-engraved portrait of Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the House of Representatives; 504 pp. with general index; ink stamp on the ffep, "Free Public Library, St. Augustine, Florida." We do not see any other library markings in this set. Moderate to light foxing in both volumes. Very good. Hardcover.
Howes W583. "Best edition, with additions & index...Minute, faithful and graphic. The original edition was edited by Noah Webster."
"My duty has called for a very scrupulous attention to the exact phraseology of the original MS. and the reader may confidently receive this text of Winthrop for a correct one, verified by collation of his autograph at three several periods in different years. The integrity of the text has, indeed, been as great an object of my labor, as the preparation of notes." - p. x.
John Winthrop (1588-1649), b. Edwardstone, England; d. Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony. A man of strong Puritan convictions, Winthrop was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, studied law, and served as a justice of the peace and as an attorney in Groton, England. He lost his court post in 1629 due to the anti-Puritan edicts of Charles I.; the next year he sailed for Massachusetts and the members of the Massachusetts Bay Company elected him as their governor. His famous phrase that New England should become "a Citty upon a Hill" is found in his 1630 lay sermon "A Modell of Christian Charity."
"For the remaining 19 years of his life, Winthrop lived in the New England wilderness, a father figure among the colonists. In the annual Massachusetts elections he was chosen governor 12 times between 1631 and 1648, and during the intervening years he sat on the court of assistants or colony council...On first arrival, in the early 1630s, he did his most creative work, guiding the colonists as they laid out a network of tightly organized towns, each with its church of self-professed saints. Winthrop himself settled at Boston, which quickly became the capital and chief port of Massachusetts. His new farm on the Mystic River was much inferior to his former estate at Groton, but Winthrop never regretted the move, because he was free at last to build a godly commonwealth." - Britannica online.
An exceptionally handsome set, one that you will be pleased to have in your library.
