Author: DOLMAN (John):
Title: Contemplations amongst Vincent's Rocks, Near the City of Bristol: In which there is a Description, not only of the said Rocks, and of the Woods, and a peculiar Flower that grows upon and amongst them.... The Second Edition, Corrected and Improved.
Description: London: Printed and Sold by J. and W. Olivers.., E. and C Dillyk..., 1772. 1772. 12mo, 168 x 100 mms., pp. [3] 4 - 132, contemporary sheepskin, recently repaired and rebacked, olive morocco label; corners very worn, but a goodish copy with the autograph "Jos. Whittuck/ Jany 19 1789" on the front paste-down end-paper. John Dolman published this in a shorter version of 108 pages in 1755, but this 1772 imprint has been expanded. ESTC describes it as a work having to do with "water efficiency", which seems reductive indeed, as the work goes far beyond that. An epistolary work, it begins by investigating the medicinal properties of "The New Hot-Wells", and notes several examples of people who have been cured, including John Wesley, who was a personal friend of the author. There would seem little doubt that the account of Wesley's encounter with the waters is first-hand: "When he first came, his once active Body, seemed as if it had nearly, very nearly, worn out his Countenance; he looked as if a greedy Consumption had determined soon to devour him: The pale Messenger's Harbingers appeared to have more than laid Hands upon him, to put a Period to his Days: But in less than three Weeks God so blessed the Water to him, which he regularly drank, that he was enabled to set out on his Cornish Circuit; which, if I mistake not, extends almost to the Land's End, preaching every Day" (p. 6). And then, just to remind us that Designer Water is not a new phenomenon, we learn, "There are large Quantities of this Water bottled, and sent to different Parts of the World" (p. 6). The ESTC does not give birth or death dates for John Dolman, though they can be supplied now: he "departed this life the 5th of Aug. 1774" when "aged 52 years", according to his tomb at Chalk (Kent Archaeological Society website: ). This means he almost certainly oversaw this second edition, and that this edition represents his latest revisions and thoughts in print. There were only two editions of the book. The first, published in 1755 (ESTC T165430), the ESTC finds extant in only two copies: Cambridge University Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The second and expanded edition, offered here, published in 1772 (ESTC T69428), is found by ESTC in only three copies: British Library, Cambridge University Library, and the University of Bristol. The ESTC finds no copies in North America and none outside Britain. (The ESTC also calls perhaps mistakenly for a half-title, but the title-page is followed by a leaf signed A2.)

Keywords: medicine water

Price: GBP 550.00 = appr. US$ 785.39 Seller: John Price Antiquarian Books
- Book number: 9811

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