Apr 23, 2009 - Sale 2177

Sale 2177 - Lot 64

Price Realized: $ 600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(CLERGYMEN.) NEWELL, SAMUEL. Autograph Letter Signed "S. Newell," to an unnamed recipient [Congregational minister and bibliophile William Buell Sprague?]. 4 pages, 4to, written on a single folded sheet; minor soiling and docketing on terminal page. Bombay, 18 August 1817
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Newell discusses at length the difficulty of establishing the art of printing in Bombay, including detailed remarks on how the defective types he has are manipulated so they will print correctly. He also discusses the school he has recently established for the "black Jews" and the fact that although many Jews there read Hebrew they do not understand what they read: ". . . they understand as little when they read as the unlearned Roman Catholics when they say their prayers in Latin." Newell wrote this letter to introduce a "Mr. Ashburner," who was emigrating from India to America and whose acquaintance he highly recommends.
Newell (?-1841) was an American Non-Conformist missionary whose times are recorded in his wife's book, Memoirs of Mrs. Harriet Newell.