Beschreibung:

Book of Common Prayer. Engraved title:] The Liturgy of the Church of England; illustrated with Fifty Nine Historical and Explanatory Sculptures, engrav'd by Mess. Ravenett, Grignion, Scotin, Canott, Walker and W. Ryland. Published…May 1st, 1755 by Edw. Ryland.
London: printed and sold by the proprietor Edward Ryland, 1755. [Followed by letterpress title:] The Book of Common Prayer . Cambridge: Printed by Joseph Bentham; sold by Bentham (Cambridge) and B. Dod, London, 1756 (--Psalms…Sternhold…Hopkins, Cambridge and London, 1757).Three parts in one, as published. 8vo (binding: 210 x 135 mm.). Contemporary London (?) or Cambridge (?) black morocco gilt, covers with an outer border composed of five different stylized flower tools enclosing an inner border of intricate wavy tracery, small flower tool and the backward facing bird, central lozenge of two crowns, circlets and other tools; spine in six compartments with five raised and gilt-tooled bands, gilt title in one compartment, a repeated gilt panel in the rest; board edges and turn-ins gilt; comb marbled endpapers, g.e. Head and foot of spine and corners worn. Although the binding bears many resemblances to the work of John Brindley of London and Ed. Moor of Cambridge, we have not attributed it to any particular shop. forger, dr. william dodd's copy, with his engraved bookplate (W. Dodd M.A. with motto "Wise and Harmless") and two 19th-century engraved portraits pasted to fly-leaves. Above the bookplate is the contemporary ownership ink inscription: "T. Harrison|Newcastle Court"; on the engraved title are the early 19th-century initials in ink: "J.H.W." JHW has also written, beneath the full-length tipped-in engraving of Dodd, an account of William Wynne Ryland William Ryland engraved eight of the plates in this edition; he also forged a bill of exchange for £200 on the East India Company and was executed at Tyburn, 29 August 1783. JHW's account concludes: "Dr. Dodd to whom this prayerbook belonged, & W. Ryland who contributed as we have seen many of the plates, were both executed at Tyburn." An engraved portrait of William Ryland faces this inscription, tipped to the blank recto of plate I (frontispiece). 59 engraved plates, including engraved title by W. Chinnery. Contemporary ink annotations mark the following Psalms for Good Friday: Psalms, 22 (Matins), 40 (2nd Matins), 54 (3rd Matins), 69 (Evensong), 88 (2nd Evensong). Two plates with minor tears, another cropped. Dodd, the son of a clergyman, had excelled at Cambridge University and obtained his doctorate in 1766. He came to London where he became a clergyman assistant to the rector of West Ham. Living hopelessly beyond his means, he was always finely dressed, was exceedingly well-connected socially and was forever trying to make up deficiencies in his paltry income. He came to the attention of the Earl of Chesterfield who selected him for his son's tutor. He was appointed Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the King and, in 1772, obtained the rectory of Hockliffe, in Bedfordshire. By 1773, the year of the Earl of Chesterfield's death, his financial recklessness began to catch up with him; in 1774 an attempt to bribe Lady Apsley was exposed and Dodd's name was duly struck off the list of chaplains. He fled to Geneva where Lord Chesterfield, his former pupil, presented him with the living of Winge, in Buckinghamshire. His preaching skills and his popularity continued to rise in parallel to his debts. A country estate in Ealing, a coach to accommodate students, his costumed appearance in a phaeton at the races on the plains of Sablon in 1776 on a visit to France, all elicited a mixture of envy and gossip. Finally he bit the hand that had fed him, by forging a bond for £4,200 in the name of the Earl of Chesterfield. For this capital offence, despite a huge clamor for clemency, Dodd was hanged at Tyburn, 27 June 1777. Purchased from Hofmann & Freeman, 1978 (an early Peyraud acquisition and from a notable firm -- Arthur Freeman is a celebrated authority on literary forgery).