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FIRST EDITION, 1855. THREE VOLUME COMPLETE SET. Hardcover. All three volumes are bound in a chocolate brown publisher's cloth. Covers are ornamented with a blind debossed decoration. Spines bear flat hubs, blind debossed, along with gilt lettering. On a shelf, this set spans 4.5". EXCERPT FROM THE PREFACE OF VOLUME I: "I would candidly advise persons who are conscious of bigoted attachment to any creed, or theory, not to purchase this book. Whether they are bigoted Christians, or bigoted infidels, its tone will be likely to displease them. My motive in writing has been a very simple one. I wished to show that theology is not religion; with the hope that I might help to break down partition walls; to ameliorate what the eloquent Bushnell calls 'baptized hatreds of the human race.' In order to do this, I have endeavoured to give a concise and comprehensive account of religions, in the liberal spirit of the motto on my title page. The period embraced in my plan extends from the most ancient Hindoo records, to the complete establishment of the Catholic church." VOLUME I: Contents include "The Progress of Religious Ideas" regarding Hindostan, Egypt, China, Thibet and Tartary, Chaldea, Persia, Greece and Rome, Celtic Tribes and Jews. Endpapers contain an advertisement for other writings of author L. Maria Child at the front, and advertisements from other "New and Standard Books published by C. S. Francis and Company" at the back. xi, 450 pp. VOLUME II: Contents include Jews After the Exile, Retrospective View, Christianity and Days of the Apostles, and the Earliest Sects, (The Judaizing Christians, The Gnostics, Saturninus, Basilides, Marcion, Carpocrates, Bardesanes, Valentinians, Marcus, Mani, Porphyry, Jamblichus). 437 pp. VOLUME III: Contents include Christianity, Mohammedanism, a concluding chapter, and a list of books consulted. Indexed. 478 pp. CONDITION: This set shows overall wear and foxing throughout, yet the text is uncompromised and readable. Joints are weakening on Volume II, but all bindings remain sound and pagination appears complete. With the exception of a previous owners name and date of 1955 written in ink on a front flyleaf of each volume, this set is free from marginalia or annotation. Ex library set with reference numbers written in white at the bottom of each spine. A fascinating set with intriguing information on the Progress of Religions Ideas, from an 1855 perspective. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: "Lydia Maria Child (1802 to 1880), was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, Native American rights activist, novelist, journalist, and opponent of American expansionism. Her journals, both fiction and domestic manuals, reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. At times she shocked her audience as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories. Despite these challenges, Child may be most remembered for her poem "Over the River and Through the Wood." Her grandparents' house, which she wrote about visiting, was restored by Tufts University in 1976 and stands near the Mystic River on South Street, in Medford, Massachusetts. Born to a strict Calvinist father, Child slept with a bible under her pillow when she was young. However, although she joined the Unitarians in 1820, as an adult she was not active in that, or any other, church. In 1855 she published the 3-volume The Progress of Religious Ideas Through Successive Ages, within which she rejected traditional theology, dogma, and doctrines and repudiated the concept of revelation and creeds as the basis for moral action, arguing instead 'It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work that theology has done in the world' and, in commenting on the efforts of theologians. 'What a blooming paradise would the whole earth be if the same amount of intellect, labor, and zeal had been expended on science, agriculture, and the arts!' (Wikipedia). Bindings are tight. Minor wear at extremities. Minor foxing. The spi.
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