?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
MATHER, INCREASE. Kometographia; or, A Discourse concerning Comets. . . as also Two Sermons occassioned by the Late Blazing Stars. General title within type-ornament border. [12] (of [14]), 143, [3]; [8], 38; [2], 32 pages, including blank K8 at end of first part; lacking initial blank A1, and without the mounted errata slip on K7v found in some copies. 3 parts in one volume. Small 8vo, 142x90 mm, contemporary mottled sheep, rebacked with morocco retaining most of original backstrip; occasional marginal dampstaining, few headlines and sidenotes shaved, small hole through upper inner corner of D4-5 affecting pagination, oxidized ink blot in outer margin of E2-F2, bottom edge of I1.8 shaved; 1/4 morocco slipcase. Signatures of Wm. Williams dated 1687, Solomon Williams dated 1742, and Ezra S. Ely; bookplate of Robert Honeyman IV. Boston: S[amuel] G[reen] for S[amuel] S[ewall] and sold by J. Browning, 1683
mather's complete writings on comets, blending contemporary scientific knowledge with superstition:first edition of Kometographia, published with the second edition of Heavens Alarm. The first work is a treatise on the origin and nature of comets, with a chronology of cometary apparitions since Creation and the catastrophes supposedly presaged by them; the second contains 2 sermons dealing with the Great Comet of 1680 and the return of Halley's Comet in 1682 as warnings from God. Brüning 1560; Evans 352; Holmes, Increase Mather 67-A, 62-B1; Honeyman Sale 2171 (this copy); Wing M1224.
