WHOLE DUTY OF MAN EPITOMIZ'D FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE POOR

[MINIATURE] [Allestree, Richard] Stacy, Edmund. THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN EPITOMIZ'D FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE POOR. [London: John Laurence, 1700] 24mo., 3 9/16 x 2 3/8 inches. First edition. Contemporary plain calf. Leaves A1-2 lacking (title and first leaf of dedication); otherwise complete. Front and rear free end papers excised, some aging and browning, but a tight copy in the well-preserved original binding. This devotional work, a collection of plain-spoken strict injunctions for daily life based on the Bible, was first published in 1658 and became immensely popular through the end of the 18th century and was widely translated, rewritten into verse, rewritten for children by William Beck (also in 1700), and in the present edition, epitomized by one Edmund Stacy, about whom little is known. Stacy was most likely a grub-street writer. Besides this work, he published an edition of Aesop in 1717 to which he added morals and lessons (for the benefit of anybody who didn't notice them on the first reading), and he edited two newspapers (`The Rehearsal Revived' and `General Postscript') in 1709. Allestree was chaplain to the King and provost of Eton, and his best-known work was once credited to Lady Dorothy Pakington, who was more likely just his copyist. This is the only miniature edition of this work we have located. Quite rare; the British Library records one copy; not in Wing. Not in Spielmann or Welsh. [a]