Feb 04, 2016 - Sale 2404

Sale 2404 - Lot 242

Price Realized: $ 2,600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
FROM THE COLLECTION OF RHODE ISLAND'S FORGOTTEN FIRST LIBRARY (RHODE ISLAND.) Keith, George. The Standard of the Quakers Examined. [16], 512 pages. 8vo, contemporary paneled calf, worn, front board coming detached, partial early paper spine label in manuscript; moderate dampstaining; stamped "Belonging to ye Library of Road Island" in gilt on front board, later bookplate on front pastedown. London, 1702
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In 1700, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel established a small collection of books at Newport's Trinity Church. It can be regarded as the first library in Rhode Island, preceding the much better known (and still extant) Redwood Library by 47 years. The library was part of the Society's quite successful effort to establish an Anglican beachhead in a colony dominated by hostile Quakers and Baptists. See Shera, Foundations of the Public Library, page 28.
This book's author, George Keith (1639-1716), was a former Quaker who had recently been ordained into the Anglican Church and went on a SPG-sponsored missionary tour of the American colonies from 1702-04. In August of 1702, he visited Newport, where he evangelized a Quaker meeting uninvited. This anti-Quaker tract, published the same year, would seem to be a perfect addition to the SPG library in Newport. Smith, Friends' Books, page II:40. Provenance: Rev. Lloyd Dudley Rapp (1917-1999), who served as Trinity Church's assistant minister from 1944 to 1946.