Beschreibung:

PRYNNE, William (1600-1669)] -- Michael SPARKE (d. 1653). A Catalogue of printed Brooks written by William Prynne of Lincolnes-Inne, Esquire, Before, During, Since his Imprisonment. London: Michael Sparke, 1643. Bifolium (227 x 171 mm). (Very pale dampstaining.) Disbound; cloth folding case. A rare catalogue by the printer Michael Sparke of the works of William Prynne (1600-1669), the puritan pamphleteer. "Prynne was one of the most prolific and zealous of the Puritan pamphleteers of the seventeenth century, best known for his willingness to suffer torture and imprisonment for the right to express himself in print. For his criticism of the English stage in Histrio-Mastix ([published by Sparke] 1633), a work interpreted as casting aspersions on the king and queen, Prynne was imprisoned, [pilloried] and shorn of his ears" (cf. Ralph E. McCoy, Freedom of the Press: An Annotated Bibliography K-124). Sparke states in his "The Stationer to the Reader" that he has published this catalogue "To free the Author from those Spurious Impostures which have been injuriously fathered on him by Walker the Ironmonger" and "To prevent all Imperfect Catalogues ...and to discover what Copies of his have been published by Erroneous Manuscripts ..." He lists 31 titles: 8 before his imprisonment, 14 written while in the Tower and 9 written since his release and return from exile. Among the best-known books published by Sparke are John Smith's The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles (first published 1624) and Francis Higginson's New-Englands Plantation (1630). SCARCE: The RLG Union catalogue locates only five copies: National Library of Australia, Harvard, Huntington, University of Minnesota and Princeton. Rostenberg Literary...Publishing, Printing & Bookselling in England I, pp. 176-182; Wing S-4815.