A PROFITABLE BOOKE declaring dyvers approoved remedies, to take out spottes and staines, in Silkes, Velvets, Linnen and Woollen Clothes. With divers colours how to die Velvets and Sylkes, Linnen and woollen, Fustian and Threade. Also to dresse Leather, and to colour Felles. How to Gild, Grave, Sowder, and Vernishe. And to harden and make softe Yron and Steele. Very necessarie for all men, specially for those which hath or shall have any doinges therein: with a perfite table hereunto, to finde all things readye, not the like revealde in English heeretofore.
Taken out of Dutche, and englished by L.M. Typographical device on title & two fine initials. Printed in black letter throughout. 1 p.l., 78, [6] pp. Small 4to, fine modern red morocco (title a little soiled, corner of A4 neatly repaired with loss of the page numbers & one letter of text), dentelles gilt, a.e.g. London: T. Purfoote, 1588. Second edition of one of the earliest English books of "secrets" or manuals of practical arts. First published in 1583; only three copies of the first edition are known, none in America (NSTC 17590: L, O, G2). Of the present edition, the NSTC (17591) records six copies: L16 (title-page mutilated), O, G2; F (lacks title-page), HD, Y. There were further editions in 1596 and 1605 (both also very rare). The first 17 pages contain recipes for soaps, for removing spots and stains from clothes, and for taking "oilie spots out of parchment or writing paper,'" etc. Pages 18-58 are devoted to recipes for dyeing wool, linen, and silk, making dyes of various colors (purple, black, green, etc.), staining and gilding leather, and so forth. Included are instructions "to make a faire brasill colour, to worke on cloth or paper." Pages 59-78 deal with methods of hardening and softening iron and steel, particularly for making tools; there are also suggestions for gilding and engraving on metal. The last six pages contain an alphabetical index. Books of this sort are perishable by nature and copies seldom appear on the market; many of those which do survive in institutional libraries are in less than perfect condition. This is largely a translation from Dutch by Leonard Mascall, who also wrote on various agricultural topics. Ferguson states that some of the text, especially on cleaning and dyeing, is entirely new. A fine copy of a book of considerable rarity. Ferguson, Biographical Notes on Histories of Inventions and Books of Secrets, Fifth Supp., pp. 9-14. Ferguson, Some Early Treatises on Technological Chemistry (1888), pp. 23-25 & Supplement V (1916), pp. 3-5. Ron, Bibliotheca Tinctoria, 718.
$US22500
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