A Lady; [Wilkinson, Rebecca]. Sermons to Children; to which are added, Short Hymns, suited to the Subjects. Springfield, [Mass.]: Printed by Henry Brewer, Jan. 1807. [9845]
Leather spine, plain paper over wood boards, worn with much of the paper now missing, rear board with horizontal split in the center, 12.5 x 7.8 cm (4 7/8 x 3 inches). Ffep torn with loss. 107 (1) pp., leaves complete, several pages torn, a couple with loss of some words. Last three leaves with worming; loss of some letters. One leaf with old sewn repair. Fair. Hardcover.
Twenty-seven sermons, each followed with a hymn. Attributed to Rebecca Wilkinson in the British Museum catalogue. Several editions are in Starr, A Baptist Bibliography, but not this 1807 Springfield imprint. A Life of Mrs. Rebecca Wilkinson was written by Joseph Hughes and published as a 12 p. tract (No. 81) by the Baptist General Tract Society of Philadelphia. Starr records it as undated; Hughes died in 1833, so circa 1830.
Rebecca Wilkinson, of Clapham, is mentioned in M'Clintock & Strong as one of the main publishers and distributors of evangelical tracts in late 18th century England, along with Rev. Charles Simeon and Rev. John Campbell - Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol. 10. p. 523.
Rebecca Wilkinson (1753-1828), b. Dublin, early moved to England and was a member of Samuel Stennett's Baptist congregation in Little Wild Street.
"A philanthropist who wrote tracts about the needs of the poor, Wilkinson was a friend of such prominent persons as the politician William Wilberforce and Joseph Hughes, secretary of the Religious Tract Society and Foreign Bible Society. In support of her various causes, she hosted monthly meetings of Anglican and Dissenting clergy in her home. Wilkinson's Sermons to Children; To which are added Short Hymns, Suited to Children first appeared in 1789 with the attribution "By a Lady," but without her name. This book went through many editions in England and America, as did The Pocket Prayer Book, of which she was also the author." - Music & Richardson, "I Will Sing the Wondrous Story", p. 68.
With a signed provenance card from the music collection of A. Merril Smoak, Jr., DWS.