Ward, Henry Dana. The Anti-Masonic Review, and Magazine; published monthly in the City of New York. Intended to Take Note of the Origin and History, of the Pretensions and Character, and of the Standard Works and Productions, of Free Masonry. New York: Vanderpool & Cole, Printers. 1828-30. Two volumes with two additional tracts bound in to the back of the first volume, list below.
Two volumes in speckled calf, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, page edges dyed yellow, each vol. signed by Hoyt on the front paste-down. A couple of small chips top of spine to vol. ii. 388, 382 clean pp., table of contents to each, tight and very good. Vol. ii. is about an eighth of an inch shorter than vol. i. The rear paste-down of vol. i. has the back of a wrapper from one of the issues pasted in - a list of books on art and architecture “At the Literary Rooms, New-York.”
The complete 24 issues of this rare periodical.
The bookseller Charles P. Everett noted in a letter dated October 10, 1925, of an incomplete set: “When we catalogued it, I neglected to say it was the nearest to a complete set ever offered…You will find that the De Puy set, which lacked three numbers, was the nearest to a complete set known. This set lacks one number, and four pages…”
Sabin 101298. “Published somewhat sporadically, the dates of the numbers appearing on the cover titles. Continued through vol. 2, 1830…Superseded by the New York Register and Antimasonic Review, of which Ward appears to have published a few numbers only.” A Merwin-Clayton catalogue had a set in 1911, “Fine copy. Exceedingly scarce.” 2 complete sets of 24 nos. were sold in the 1920’s, one by Goodspeed and the other by The Anderson Galleries.
Walgren references this periodical where other publications reprinted articles from it, but has no separate entry for it. Cummings p. 76
Two additional tracts are bound in at the end of the first volume.
A Letter on Speculative Freemasonry: by Charles Pinckney Sumner, Sheriff of Suffolk County. Being an Answer to a Letter addressed to him on that Subject by the Suffolk Committee. Boston: John Marsh, 1829. 20 pp.
Sabin 93694. Walgren 3215. First in order of the two states mentioned. Cummings p. 36.
Last record a Goodspeed catalogue, 1968.
Charles Pinckney Sumner (1776-1839), b. Milton, MA; d. Boston, MA. Sumner graduated at Harvard, studied law under Josiah Quincy, practiced law for about 15 years, and was appointed Sheriff of Suffolk County in 1825. A close associate of William Ellery Channing, he was an early abolitionist; his son was the abolitionist and US Senator Charles Sumner, the victim of the famous beating with a cane in the Senate chamber after delivering his speech, The Crime Against Kansas.
A Letter on Speculative Free Masonry, by Pliny Merrick, Esq. Being his Answer to Gen. Nathan Heard and Col. Gardner Burbank upon their application for his Views on that Subject. Worcester: Dorr and Howland, 1829. 20 pp.
Walgren 3137. "This is the first edition of Merrick's Renunciation, reprinted in 1830." Cummings p, 49..
Last sale record, Goodspeed, 1967.
Pliney Merrick (1794-1867), graduated at Harvard Law School (1814), Massachusetts attorney and politician, sometime Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.