THE NEW WEEK'S PREPARATION FOR A WORTHY RECEIVING OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, AS RECOMMENDED AND APPOINTED BY THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ...

London : for W. Bent, (1792). An interesting late eightenth-century edition of both parts of this popular devotional guide, constantly in print since its first appearance in the 1730s. The present copy was bound, almost certainly in Liverpool, for "Pudsey Dawson, Esqr. Bailiff, 1797", whose name is unusually but prominently tooled in gilt on the upper cover. Dawson (1752-1816) was rather more than just a bailiff, serving as Mayor of Liverpool at one time (Pudsey Street is named after him and there is a portrait in the Liverpool Record Office). A man of notable piety, as well as wealth, remembered as one of Liverpool's "most active, enlightened and useful citizens", he was also the founder of the first school for the blind in the country. An internal inscription records his gift of the book to his eldest daughter, Mary Dawson (1779-1855) on Christmas Eve, 1803. Crown 12mo (160 x 94mm). [iv],[2],viii,142,144pp. Engraved frontispiece. Contemporary full blue-black goatskin, ruled and tooled in gilt; all edges gilt; marbled endleaves; lightly rubbed and a touch bruised; a few minor internal marks, spots and tiny flaws, but overall a very good copy of most attractive survival. Later armorial "Fac et Spera" bookplate on front pastedown.