Author: GREGORY (John Mack):
Title: An Account of the Sepulchers [sic] of the Antients, And a Description of their Monuments, from the Creation of the World, and from Thence to the Destruction of Jerusalem, In Two Parts: The First Comprehending Those that are in Asia, and the Second Those in Africa...The Whole Containing several Geographical and Historical Remarks...
Description: London, Printed for the Author, and to be Sold by J. Barns in Pallmall, W. Taylor..., E. Curll..., and G. Strahan in Cornhill, 1712. ?FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 188 x 114 mms., pp. [viii], xxvi [xxvii - xxviii subscription proposal], 108, with "End of the First Part" on lower margin of last page, slightly later panelled sheepskin, neatly rebacked; no label. Gregory's work was intended to introduce a larger work which was never published. The work is dedicated to the [Henry Somerset, Second] Duke of Beaufort (1684 - 1714), who is extolled as a "Patron of Learning." ODNB rather more prosaically reports that he established a "high-tory drinking society, the Honourable Board of Loyal Brotherhood, in 1709." He was active in the ministry of Robert Harley. The text makes clear, that Gregory did indeed many of the ancient sites that he describes, giving measurements of various sepulchers for example. Curll's name in the imprint is somewhat curious, as this is not the sort of publication one might associate with him at this period. He had, however, opened a books hop in fashionable Tunbridge Wells, and "scholarly" volumes like this one were supposed to be valued by the cognoscenti and the socially aspirational and respectable.

Keywords: archaeology History prose


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