[Shorthand] The Book of Common Prayer in Hervey's Short Hand

Kirkby (George, Junior)

Publication Date: 1812

About this Item

12mo. Title in manuscript and the Book of Common Prayer in shorthand. ll edges gilt. Marbled endpapers. Inner gilt dentelles. Faded ink, cracked hinges, headband loose. 7 x 11 cm. Contemporary straight-grained burgundy morocco, gilt, upper cover with contrasting black morocco oval inlay with author's initials within floral scrolling border & lower cover with date within identical hand-tooled decoration in gilt (rubbed, bumping to corners and spine extremities). George Kirkby Junior (1773-1857) was the owner of the Kentish Gazette along with Charles Petman Rouse, and James Lawrence. James Hervey (1714-1758), Calvinist Anglican divine (and former Oxford Methodist), following several minor clerical appointments in 1740 he became the curate of Bideford, North Devon, where he started work on the drafts of his famous Meditations and Reflections. The latter works appeared in 1745-1746, to be followed in 1747 by his Contemplation upon the night and other works. His popular Meditations Among the Tombs was published in 1746 and it was often reprinted. The subject of the book is death, and the author dwells particularly on the grief caused by early death, and on the eventual re-uniting of the parted in heaven. Hervey had a lasting impact on art through William Blake, who was an admirer of his. Blake painted Epitome of James Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs between 1820 and 1825.Hervey is also mentioned in Blake's work as one of the holy guards to the 'four-fold gate', and his influence on Blake's poem The Tyger has also been noted. Hervey was also a friend and correspondent of John Wesley, founder of Methodism. This manuscript belongs to a wider, as yet little-studied, tradition of transcribing scriptural and prayer book material into shorthand a practice prescribed by various shorthand teachers since the early seventeenth century as a good (and pious) way of becoming fluent in a system. Successful attempts were sometimes used to advertise particular systems to a wider public: James Weston, for example, publicised his own shorthand system by advertising a display of the Bible and Singing Psalms written by him in this Character in several journals during the 1720s. Examples of Hervey's shorthand are not common, but there is a copy of a 1795 Thomas Hervey Bible in Shorthand at the Archives and Manuscript Department, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University. This is a unique Napoleonic era example of an entire work in shorthand, preserved in a charming contemporary full morocco binding. Seller Inventory # 5096

Bibliographic Details

Title: [Shorthand] The Book of Common Prayer in ...

Publication Date: 1812

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition