[COLONIAL PRINTING-NEW YORK] KEITH, GEORGE. Truth Advanced in the Correction of Many Gross & hurtful Errors; Wherein is occasio...
N.p. [but New York: William Bradford], 1694. First edition. Burgundy levant morocco by Rivière & Son, covers triple ruled in gilt, spine in six compartments with raised bands and elaborately stamped in gilt. 7 1/8 x 5 1/2 inches (17.75 x 14 cm); two parts in one, with a general title and separate title for the second part A Chronological Treatise of the several Ages of the World from Adam to Christ and thence to the End of the World, paginated [10], 175-180-184, 32 pp. (N.B. pp. 176-179 were omitted from the pagination, the book is complete thus). [Part I.]: [a]^[6] leaves (the first leaf blank and lacking); B, B (repeated)-Y^[4] Z^[2];. [Part II]: A-D^[4] (Y2 mis-signed X2). Minor rubbing primarily to the upper joint. Internally, lacking initial blank, the head of the title-page in facsimile affecting the first four words and additional letters, paper restoration to the title and lower margin of the first leaf of the Preface, small tears to the fore-margin with a minute loss to the edge, and a crease extending across the title; front free endpaper and first flyleaf loose from the binding, toned throughout, a few old and minor marginal restorations noted, in all a very respectable copy of a great rarity. The Depuy-Smith-Zinman-Snider example, with the Depuy and Snider bookplates.

Though slightly earlier examples of New York printing exist, this is the first work more extensive than a mere pamphlet to be produced in New York. It is also the single most substantial seventeenth century imprint produced by William Bradford, the founder of the first printing press in the Middle Colonies. His first press in Pennsylvania began work in 1685; in 1692 he was arrested and tried by the local government for the publication of a collection of Keith's Quaker writings, issued without imprint, which had offended the orthodoxy of the Quaker establishment. By good fortune and skillful advocacy he won his freedom and the return of his printing equipment, but discomfited by this persecution, he removed to New York, with the encouragement of the Governor of the Province, Benjamin Fletcher. Almost immediately thereafter he issued the present work, also without imprint, which touched on the same controversial aspects of Quaker doctrine. The succeeding work to this by Bradford was the great The Laws & Acts of the General Assembly for Their Majesties Province of New-York.

Bradford used paper produced at the Rittenhouse Mill for this edition, and as that was the first paper mill in British America (it began operation in 1691), Truth Advanced is one of the earliest books printed entirely on American-manufactured paper. Greek type is used on p. 33, a very early use of a Greek font in a book printed in North America. Church makes mention of the use of Hebrew characters; these are found in a diagram on p. 154. ESTC records sixteen copies held institutionally; the book is vanishingly rare in private hands. ESTC W28400; Celebration of My Country 17; Church 745; Eames First Year of Printing in New York 36; Evans 691; Grolier Club The Bradford Exhibition 23; Reese George Keith's American Imprints 22 (in Princeton University Library Chronicle, Spring 1977); Reese Printer's First Fruits 34; Sabin 372

Provenance: Henry F. Depuy (morocco gilt label on the front pastedown, Anderson Galleries, 26 January 1920, lot 1323); George D. Smith (Anderson Galleries, 16 May 1921, lot 103); Michael Zinman (pencil notes on the front free endpaper); Jay T. Snider (bookplate)

C Private Collection of Barbara and Ira Lipman

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