Passions of the Minde in Generall: A Reprint Based on the 1604 Ediition

Octavo, 8 1/4" tall, lxiii [introduction] + ii + 352 [facsimile] + 4 [index] + 17 [philosophical declaration] pages, gilt spine titles on beige cloth over black bards. A very good minus, sturdy hard cover first edition thus with minor shelf wear BUT one corner bumped, little exterior soiling BUT with foxing to the fore-edges; binding solid, paper cream white with a very slight touch of foxing to the endpapers. Without dust jacket, if issued. There seems to be some controversy over which 'Thomas Wright' this is. The Sloan introduction contends it is the work of an ex-Jesuit priest who had disappeared twenty years previous. But to this "Thomas Wright (fl. 1604), a protégé of Henry Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton [q. v.], [who] had travelled in Italy, must be ascribed ?A Succinct Philosophicall Declaration of the Nature of Clymactericall Yeeres, occasioned by the Death of Queene Elizabeth. Written by T. W[right]. Printed for T. Thorpe,? London, 1604, 4to, and ?The Passions of the Minde in generall. By Thomas Wright,? London, 1601, 4to, which reappeared in 1604 ?corrected, enlarged, and with sundry new discourses augmented,? and was reissued in 1621 and 1630. This work was dedicated to Southampton in the hope that he may be ?delivered from inordinate passions,? and had commendatory verses by B. I. [? Ben Jonson]." Dictionary of National Biography. No matter. The work stands, and both Wrights have long been wronged. Without dust jacket (if issued).…