Pleasing Instructor Entertaining Moralist Containing (3 results)

, [ii], 360 pages, illustrated with 3 black and white plates along with a small illustration on the title page, this being a collection on works from authors such as Alexander Pope, New Edition , sections missing from spine and boards, front and rear hinges cracked, corners of boards bumped and worn, front board partially detached, previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown, generally pages clean but tanned, some page edges untrimmed, fair condition , full calf, gilt rules on spine , in sixes, 18 x 11.5 cms Hardback ISBN:

Vellum. Condition: Good. Rebound in dark brown leather with five raised bands. Pub circa 1790. Collection of writings by several English authors including poetry. B/w etching on tilte page.Preface by A Fisher.Foxing but otherwise good copy. Pencil inscription.

Anne Fisher (1719-1778), the wife of Newcastle printer Thomas Slack and the mother of nine daughters, wrote a number of books on education. She Òwas no mere compiler; she wrote as an experienced educator. Her comments on the teaching of English grammar in the preface of her New Grammar continue to be pertinent and there is a modern ring, too, to her remark, in the introduction to her Pleasing Instructor, that: ÔAn austere or learned pedant has sometimes whipped Latin, Greek, &c. into a lad, whose very disgust to it increased, perhaps, with the Acquisition thereof; but it is a manifest absurdity to maintain or imagine that anyone can be awed into a Love of learningÕ (quoted in Oxford DNB). Fisher continues to lament the state of womenÕs education, believing that Òa young lady should be taught to think, reflect, and form a taste of life in.Ó Twelvemo, in sixes. [2], 360 pp. Engraved title-page, three engraved plates. Modern marbled wrappers. Title-page very soiled. A decent copy of a scarce book. Later edition, probably pirated, of a book originally published in 1756. There were many reprints of this work, but all are rare. The present edition is cited in five locations, three in the U.K., and two in California (the Huntington Library and UCLA).