This very early volume on Colonial America was written by Samuel Lee and printed by Samuel Green in Boston. Lee was a scholar and minister in England and later in Massachusetts and Rhode Island who was somewhat controversial for his willingness to embrace science. Of this, his last book, one writer opined, “Probably no book quite so marked by the characteristic paradox of science-not-enough in juxtaposition to unbounded confidence in the possibilities of the new knowledge had been printed in America before.” [Source: Hornberger, Theodore, “Samuel Lee (1625-1691), a Clerical Channel for the Flow of New Ideas to Seventeenth Century New England.” Osiris, Vol. 1 (Jan., 1936), pp. 351]. Cotton Mather said of Lee, “hardly ever a more universally learned person trod the American strand.” On a return trip to England his ship was captured by French pirates, and Lee died a prisoner in 1691. 247 pages. Full leather.

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Condition: B

Text is moderately toned with some soiling and numerous annotations throughout. Title page is missing (replaced in facsimile), the errata page at the end is torn, page 5/6 is somewhat loose, and the rear free endpaper is missing. Binding is heavily worn with loose covers, but the text block is intact.